“Lead or linger”

"The energy here is unbelievable,” said actor Perizaad Zorabian Irani, herself bubbling with enthusiasm as she announced the winners of the fashion show to a packed hall of screaming youngsters on the penultimate day of the Holiday Programme for Youth (HPY) 2007. The fashion show perhaps best epitomizes the spirit of HPY — the individual and collective effort which presents the expected and the extraordinary, the good, the bad and the naughty as around 200 just-out-of-school teens go through the 28-day action-packed program!

"We have an all-time high of 210 participants this year — 122 boys and 88 girls,” announced chief coordinator Diana Marfatia at the inaugural function on May 3, 2007. For the boys, this landmark 21st year spelt more than mere numerical strength — all the four group winners were boys whereas last year they had all been girls! "Parsi boys, don’t let anybody beat you down! You’ve done better than the girls,” encouraged Marfatia to claps and cheers from the audience of participants, parents and invitees. Looking smart in suits, despite the blazing heat of a Bombay summer, a larger proportion of the prizes this year were also snapped up by the boys.

Each year HPY presents a creative curriculum, taking a bunch of boisterous 16-year-olds through a rollercoaster of activities — cerebral, competitive and character-building. The course is, in Marfatia’s words, "quite a rigor,” presented however in the package "don’t worry, be happy.” The HPY canvas covers talks on careers — ranging from old stalwarts arts/science/commerce to newer money-making options like animation, fashion/jewelry/shoe/designing, event management, media, entrepreneurship, etc. Vim and vigor is tossed in the form of football, cricket, volleyball, throwball, swimming. Adventure games raise the bar for the braveheart and faintheart. The sound of music is in the Antakshari, talent contest, dance sessions; brainwaves are for the quiz, debates, dramatics, Art 66 (creative art), etc.

"HPY is the first step in our journey. We have to choose at this crossroad,” stated participant Jimmy Madon in his three-minute presentation at the valedictory function on May 30 in the hot but hallowed hall of the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Parsee Charitable Institution (BJPCI). "You have to decide whether you want to lead or linger, try to go far or stay where you are.” "HPY collected an unsurpassed number of 202 bottles of blood this year. The doctors of the St George’s Blood Bank were delirious and grateful!” announced Marfatia. A select group of HPYites regaled residents of the newly opened Senior Citizens Home at the Parsee General Hospital with song and dance; 12 able-bodied inmates of the Parukh Dharamshalla were "thrilled to participate in the Antakshari with a live orchestra in attendance,” Marfatia informed the audience. "The importance of doing things generally for others is a lesson for the youngsters to learn.” As in earlier years, HPY organized the navjote of a deserving child — the 18th child initiated into the fold by them so far. The cleaning of three agiaries and visits to four old age establishments — the Parukh Dharam­shalla, the Parsi Ward at the J.J. Hospital, the All Saints and Shepherd’s Home — were among the social service activities. Adding to the fund of knowledge were trips to the Reserve Bank of India Money Museum, Nehru Science Centre, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Braille Press, the Godrej factory and mangroves at Vikhroli.

The Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) is, in the words of organizer and compere Pearl Mistry, "HPY’s parent body.” BPP trustee Dadi Engineer chaired the inaugural, chairman Minoo Shroff presided over the closing function. Chief executive Behram Dastur and senior executive Cawas Panthaki are on the organizing committee, with office assistant Bakhtavar Dastur efficiently handling the administration. The BPP subsidizes what has come to be known as its stellar program, charging only a token registration fee. With 175 participants from Bombay and environs and 35 students this year from places like Ahmedabad, Surat, Bulsar, Vapi, Hyderabad, Madras, Jaipur and New Delhi, a cross section of 85 schools were represented, including 30 from outside Bombay.

With a plethora of simultaneous activities, HPY’s success year after year rests on a number of strong and slender shoulders — those of Marfatia who has power steered the Programme for 19 of its 21 years, aided by a ferris wheel of young ex-HPYites who put in time, energy and effort despite study and work commitments. "We have five completely new people this year in charge of different groups. Four of them did HPY just last year. They have outdone my expectations! It is not easy to draw the personal and professional line when you are just a year older than those you lead,” Marfatia remarked. Expressing her appreciation of the work of senior organizers, Marfatia said: "Shirzad Khory has been an organiser for 10 years. His vocation keeps him busy from 6 a.m. to midnight. The feelings he has for HPY are unmatched. I can depend on him with my eyes shut.” Khory, as well as lawyer and company secretary-in-the-making Khursheed Mistry, siblings Pearl, Azmin (Marfatia’s right hand this year as assistant coordinator) and Rayomand Mistry, Delaviz Gazder and Diana Bhathena were felicitated for long-term commitment to the Programme. "This is HPY’s 12th year in succession at the BJPCI and I personally thank the trustees for all the infrastructure and facilities and for making things easy and comfortable for us,” Marfatia stated.

At the inauguration, Engineer extolled HPY’s motto ‘Striving for excellence,’ noting that excellence was not an act but a habit. "Have a clear sense of direction,” he exhorted. "Have the aptitude for your chosen vocation. I was advised to become a doctor, but I cannot stand the sight of blood. If I had to dissect a cockroach, there was a sporting chance the cockroach would dissect me!” Engineer emphasized the art of communication: "Well-known lawyer Nani Palkhivala had a very bad lisp in his early days. But he trained his tongue and became one of the greatest speakers. British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli was booed when he first rose to speak in Parliament. ‘A time will come when you shall hear me,’ Disraeli told his detractors, and went on to become one of the greatest orators in Britain,” Engineer narrated.

The organizing group: hardworking and happy

The guest of honor at the inauguration was Sam Balsara, chairman and managing director of Madison World, a company with a gross billing of Rs 11 billion which has 12 specialist units and employs 400 communication experts. "Balsara’s influence in the advertising world is considerable,” Engineer stated in his introduction. "Asking a grey-haired person to advise youth is treading on dangerous ground but I will give it a gallant try!” smiled Balsara, presenting his five-point plan "to conquer the world.” This is a highly competitive dog-eat-dog world, he averred. Education, vocational training, a high dose of intelligence quotient and emotional quotient are needed. "You must have single-minded purpose, a street smart approach to life, a passion to win in the marketplace. Youth from other communities seem to do much better than the Parsis at developing a can-do, must-do attitude. Perhaps this is due to our comfortable homes and backgrounds. We should be intelligent enough to use this to our advantage.” Do not hesitate to go in for newer careers like deep sea diving, animation, etc, he counselled. "Presentation is as important as content, form is as important as function... Work on it. Don’t fool yourself into believing that this comes naturally.” Balsara recommended tapping the strong brand value of the Parsi community. "We are perceived as a hardworking people with high integrity. But this has made some people complacent. We must retain our heritage, customs, festivals. There is a weakness for Western culture and ways. Parsis seem sometimes more English than the English. We owe it to ourselves to retain our strong brand value. If we partake of the benefits of the image, we must also further build on it and pass it on,” the ad man said.

Chief guest Dr Keki Turel was introduced to the gathering not only as a renowned neurosurgeon, but a man of many parts — master in Hindi, a fine photographer, an athornan, a dedicated teacher and writer of medicine and a doctor with many ‘firsts.’ "Be a generalist before you become a specialist,” Turel prescribed. "I may specialize as a neurosurgeon, but if my patient has diarrohea, I should be able to treat it!” No super computer can match the vast potential of the brain, so cash in and capitalize on your brain, he advised. "Even when you are at the top in your profession, there are more and more people watching you from the bottom. You have to keep reinventing yourself to remain at the top,” said the doctor.

Confident on the catwalk: Anahita Dotiwalla (ext right) and other models; (bottom) judges Perizaad and Boman Irani

"Wear a winning smile. A cheerful disposition makes you acceptable to others,” Shroff asserted. Punctuality, good manners and grooming are particularly important. "Thirty-year-old suits, tie askew or jeans at Doongerwadi are not the kind of apparel that proclaim good grooming,” he said. Life is a saga of competition, without a finishing line. "I am glad Dee (Diana Marfatia) has prepared you. Success is not a one-way street. Life would then be dull and unexciting. There are bound to be reverses. People say they’d ‘die’ to be able to do something, you have to live to do it!”

"Eminent radiologist Dr Jimmy Sidhva is highly rated in the medical fraternity. He has been decorated here and abroad,” Shroff stated in his introduction of the chief guest on the last day of the Programme. Sidhva has written two books on Zoroastrianism and his writings on the Gathas have appeared in the Jam-e-Jamshed on Sundays for 250 successive issues. Known for his sense of humor, his acting on stage to raise funds for a deserving cause, "Sidhva is a man who enjoys life, has his heart in the right place and is an all round personality,” Shroff remarked. "I am doing my best to live down what Minoo said. I have been trying to lose weight as an all round personality!” Sidhva quipped in his customary style. Touching upon the word ‘communal,’ he asserted that though the general perception is that ‘communal’ is a bad or foul word, it need not necessarily be so, in the sense that it refers to ‘community.’ "You obviously love your immediate family most, then the extended family and friends, then your community. To be proud of one’s community is a very good thing, provided you don’t run down other communities,” he said. Barring the entry of non-Parsis into fire temples is not due to pride or snootiness, he asserted, but because the consecration of a fire temple is a long and elaborate process. "It takes prayers by the same mobeds for a period of over three years to consecrate an atash behram fire. It is an extra pure flame. Purity is the reason for restriction. Every Parsi is also not allowed to enter the kebla,” Sidhva noted.

With a large number of professionals, both Parsi and non-Parsi, giving the students the benefit of their expertise, developer Boman Irani of the Rustomjee group offered to do more than that. "I will train you, I’ll put you into the industry and set you on the way to success,” he told the teenagers. "HPY, I truly believe in your cause.”

Picking up the crown of Mr HPY was Khurshed Mogrelia, with Khushnuma Daruwalla adjudged Ms HPY. Zubin Sheriar and Zenia Achhadwala were the respective runners up. Yohan Mistry was the best sportsperson. The Best Literary All Rounder title was bagged by Feryuz Patel. Scoring highest in their respective groups were Rushad Irani, Rustom Dalal, Sheriar and Madon. Anahita Dotiwalla and Sean Mojia were the best female and male models, while Faranaz Dalal and Shaun Kolah were the best catwalkers.

"I was a mischievous boy but I have still enjoyed each and every moment,” Mogrelia told Parsiana. "I really liked the visits to the Money Museum and the Braille Press. The adventure games were the best and they were perfectly safe. Seeing we were having so much fun, even the hesitant ones landed up doing it! I had almost decided on mass communication as a career but some of the sessions, such as the one on architecture, were so good that it has kind of got me more confused!” laughs Farzeen Kapadia of New Delhi. "I hope we could have this program again,” wishes Sanaya Bhathena of Surat. "The program is perfect but they could have Sundays off,” Feryuz Patel is forthright, with no penchant for pretence!