“The key to survival”

"We are living in a society where kids question everything, especially in the US. Unless we start teaching Zara­thushtra’s original teachings, we’ll lose them…Zarathushtra’s teachings are so relevant to life, we won’t have any problems keeping the children,” says retired attorney Dina McIntyre who has now devoted her life to research, writing and lecturing on Zoroastrianism.

Full of praise for Lovji Cama’s "great job at teaching” children of the Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York (ZAGNY), McIntyre says the first generation children are now intent on teaching their own children "all because Lovji taught them the original teachings of Zarathushtra.”

Speaking to Parsiana in the aisles of the Homi J. H. Taleyarkhan Hall before the start of her lecture on "Zoroastrianism: A Universal Religion,” McIntyre suggested that the New York experience would be equally relevant to Bombay. "If you could get kids together once a week or fortnight, or even once a month, and get someone who knows the original teachings to teach them, it will benefit their lives, ensure that the religion would survive.” For the teenaged group she recommended that each one take a topic, study it, speak about it, let the group discuss it, relate it to their experiences, noting that a wealth of topics are available on the website vohuman.org. "If you want the group to be cohesive, Zarathushtra teaches that it is not enough to think and speak. Let them all work on a project.” Outings like sleepovers, skating parties and other outings as a group also help to build camaraderie, she points out, noting, "Working together and playing together they get a sense of belonging.”

Jamshedpur born Dina Ghandy had met her mate Richard McIntrye while she was studying at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) where she was pursuing a degree in science. Sensing opposition from her parents, the couple had eloped quietly to New York, where an 18-year-old could get married without parental consent. Later they established their own legal firm McIntyre and McIntyre in Pittsburgh. Decades thereafter she was touched by the fact that in her mother’s house a divo and fresh flowers were placed, daily, before a photograph of the late Richard.

After some years of study, McIntyre had begun her commitment to spreading the teachings of Zarathushtra by producing a set of essays on various aspects of the Gathas contributed by scholars committed to the intellectual and practical understanding of Zarathushtra’s ideas. The set of 12 issues and the dialog they generated between scholars and readers between 1989 to 1990 were distributed by her world-wide, free of cost to all those interested in the subject.

Retired from her legal practice since August 2005, Dina says she has acquired photocopies of three ancient Zoroastrian manuscripts — the L17 from London and the J2 and K5 from the Cleveland Public Library. Using Dr Irach J. S. Taraporewala’s book on the Gathas and Beeke’s Grammar of Gatha Avestan she says she has taught herself the Gathic alphabet — "not the language” she emphasizes. "I’m slogging away and having a lot of fun,” she declares with her soft smile. She has also studied translations of later texts such as the latter Yasnas, Sirozahs, Mainyo-i-khard, the Pahlavi Bundehisn, Selections from Zadsparam, etc. If you are well grounded in the Gathas, "you can find the golden strands of Gathic thought in many later texts,” she tells us. Recently the World Zoroastrian Organisation magazine Hamazor published five of her articles under the umbrella title: "Harmony in Paradox” and her writings also appear on the Zoroastrian educational website vohuman.org maintained by Mehrbour­zin Soroushian, Khusro Mehrfar and Jamshid Varza from California. That website’s educational material is currently under transition to a new server, and may not be accessible until the transition is complete, McIntyre informs us.

Emphasizing the value of good leadership McIntyre suggests that the community in Bombay invite Cama and Varza (who is deeply involved in education in California) to set up a series of teaching sessions for children, "teach teachers here to teach what Zarathushtra taught,” for in the teachings of the Gathas lies "the key to survival.”