"Deadly campaign"

For years we have been trying to bring reforms in our Doongerwadis but have failed to do so. One person who had the guts to do this is Dhun Baria. However she should have confined herself to doing this within the community, like our anjumans and punchayets, magazines and weeklies. That would have been more effective, and would have exposed our shortcomings among ourselves. By putting the goings-on of our Towers of Silence on the net, the TV and other media, we have made a laughing stock and exposed ourselves to the whole world. By doing this she may have achieved her objective, but at the expense of our reputation.

Brig N. B. GRANT

Poona

Each time I see the picture of Dhun Baria on the front page of the Mumbai Mirror (I have not destroyed the issue) my blood boils and I felt that each letter written, may bring home the fact as to how disgusted and horrified people are at the way this lady has handled the issue. We have to be eternally grateful to The Times of India for not publishing the pictures.

What is it these days — a modern trend to wash dirty linen in public? We are all aware of what is happening to the bodies in our dakhmas and along with others, I too would wish for changes. We are also aware of the implications and the reasons behind the hesitation of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet. Does the lady forget that we belong to a small community — albeit a bickering one — a community which has always given a helping hand to those of our own as well as others? We need to stick together for our very survival. We already have groups who have tried to initiate changes, but in such a dignified manner.

I refuse to believe Baria was so naive as to not know what was happening to bodies in the dakhmas. Does she not read any Parsi newspapers or speak to any Parsis? I refuse to believe that only the khandhias made her aware of the situation.

I suggest our dasturs and others who ostracize those who want to convert and follow our religion genuinely as also the children of our girls who marry outside the community vent their wrath on individuals who are trying to besmirch the good name of the Parsis.

MEHROO S. KHAREGAT

In the wake of the Doongerwadi controversy the community has been getting some "suggestions” from the very individuals who have persistently attacked dakhmenashini. When push comes to shove, and these individuals realize that the very existence of the entire Doonger­wadi is at stake with their ill-advised propaganda, we have been given suggestions, not by one or two individuals but by several who belong to the DDD-AG (Disposal of the Dead with Dignity-Action Group) lobby!

One of the suggestions is that we give at least one bungli at the Doonger­wadi premises to those who opt for either burial or cremation! While we, as a community, respect their wish and suggestion, I find it very illogical that these individuals are asking for a bungli on the same property so very close to the dakhmas where they say and "prove” that bodies are "rotting,” piling up, causing health hazards! Now isn’t this the mother of all illogic!

Why do these good individuals wish to expose themselves and their dead to such a horrible environment? Why do they wish to demand a bungli on the very same ground they think will cause harm to the living, i.e. to them? Why do these heretics not exert their freedom of right to religion and "do as you please” choice slogan, and build their own aramgahs and crematoriums anywhere in Bombay or in India or in the whole wide world that they so choose? Why only at Doonger-wadi? Will the non-Parsi media, if they have any ethics, any responsibility in journalism, please ask these questions to the heterodox in the community?

If this episode of a few heretics dragging an entire institution down with their irreligious demands and hurting the sentiments of the community had happened within the Muslim, Hindu or Christian communities, by now, all hell would have broken loose! The media, the radio stations, the TV channels would not have dared to air even a one minute propaganda. What about hurting the religious sentiments of our community? Are these TV channels, cosmopolitan media and radio stations so very insensitive to our religious feelings? But, the Parsis, by nature are docile and accommodating. We respect the wishes of others to choose to do that which they want (keeping in mind the consequences of their choice, of course), but not when it comes to doing that which is scripturally forbidden, that harms the community and its sentiments!

I am not burying my head in sand! Problems do exist but the system works! It is the management that has failed, purposely! This property is bequeathed to us by our ancestors for the sole purpose of dakhmenashini. Do we give in to these "little kids” who go on a tantrum and demand a bungli?

PERVIN MISTRY

First let me make it clear I am a firm believer in dakhmenashini but only as long as vultures are there. In the absence of vultures, cremation is the next best method.

Orthodox Parsis should have no objection to cremation. After all they do use ovens and microwaves in their homes. If they are not defiling fire when they put dead flesh, i.e. mutton, chicken, etc in their microwaves and ovens then how are they defiling fire when they put dead humans in the crematorium? Please let common sense prevail. SHIRIN KOTWAL

The under-scrutiny Parsi obsequies and their continuance of the system of disposal by exposure to nature, regrettably unsustainable in the ongoing century due to the extinction of the devouring vultures, has lead to a vertical split in the once united Parsi community.

The discrepancy arising between those in favor of adhering to centuries’ old rituals and those opposed to it under prevailing non-conducive conditions is gaining bad publicity in the largely uninformed non-Parsi Press.

Pardon the sick pun, but over their dead bodies will Parsis let an outsider intervene or even the government step in to usurp the much coveted prime real estate property atop Malabar Hill in the heart of our commercial metropolis.

As a proud and practising member of the Parsi community, on behalf of all progressive and right thinking Indian Parsis in Bombay, one can only hopefully offer a certain win-win remedial action to the satisfaction of all concerned, without treading on overly sensitive orthodox or legal toes.

There is a simple, single-step way out of this simmering imbroglio without much ado, provided the players in the leading roles stop behaving like head-in-the-sands ostrich politicians, and spruce up their act as elected custodians of the vast properties and assets of the Parsi community in Bombay. With immediate effect, the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trustees have to responsibly become the change all Parsis want to see.

Instead of sitting on the fence the BPP trustees have to judiciously arrive at a unanimous decision to initiate use of appointed bunglis on the Doongerwadi lands for the rightful use of funeral prayers for each and every practicing Parsi/Irani Zoroastrian. Thereafter, those individuals who desire to faithfully observe the traditional dakhmenashini rites against all odds, may continue to be carried by the pallbearers as they are wont to, beyond the forbidden door to the consecrated dakhmas. Alternatively, those who will their mortal remains to be either buried or cremated and not left to the vagaries of the open elements, can have their bodies carried to the crematorium/burial grounds of their choice outside the Doogerwadi, with the relatives returning after bath for the remaining four days of prayers.

This way no clauses of the deed of lease/transfer are breached and it allays the all important fear of the government acquiring consecrated land allocated for the Towers of Silence, over 300 years ago. The reformists are not denied their constitutional rights of access to final religious rites at the sacrosanct Doon-gerwadi bunglis (why give leeway for an aggrieved one among them to drag the matter to the apex court?) and the inflexible orthodox are happy that no one despoils their souls’ onward progress to Ahura’s kingdom across Chinvad Bridge.

MICKIE NAUSHER SORABJEE

Several fundamentalists like Eruch Desai and Noshir Dadrawala have time and again written in favor of continuing with dakmenashini in spite of the fact that the scavenger vultures have totally disappeared from Doongerwadi.

When Desai states that dakhmena­shini prevailed in Iran he should at least have known that all the Achemenian kings were entombed. There is a sepulchre for Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae and the Naksh-e-Rustom (burial vaults) for Darius the Great, Xerxes, Artaxerxes and Darius II at Persepolis.

According to R. R. Motafram’s History of Ancient Iran the Magis (maverick priests) practiced exposure to carnivorous animals and birds but did not enforce it universally on all the people. The practice of a few maverick priests cannot be taken as a general system in vogue.

Earlier Desai had claimed that no foul smell was emanating from the dakhmas. In my personal letter to him, I had challenged him to walk with me together with a responsible witness in the close vicinity of the dakhmas to verify his claim. To date I have not received any reply from him.

In a recent letter ("Disawalla’s distinctions,” Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, June 7, 2006) I have quoted the opinion of the learned medical practitioner, the late Dr M. D. Disawalla, who based on his experience in mortuaries, witnessing countless corpses in a state of appalling decay and putrefaction, had boldly rejected dakhmenashini.

Instead of making such false claims that the sun’s rays can consume the corpse, let these fundamentalists have the guts to advocate a referendum on Universal Adult Franchise basis on this issue. The pertinent question is: Why is the Bombay Parsi Punchayet reluctant to hold a referendum on this issue? Let the community decide on this vital matter and not the likes of Desai and Dadrawala.

Dr P. D. SUNAVALA