“My tribute to Rustom”

"Nobody can make me do what I don’t want to do…Nobody has coerced me into it [contesting for Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trusteeship]. I want to be very specific about that,” said Armaity Tirandaz to Parsiana at the very beginning of an interview at her residence on March 12, 2009.

Armaity came under the glare of community politics on the sudden demise of her husband Rustom who had been reelected as BPP trustee last October after six years in limbo when he had contested and lost two elections for trusteeship. While Rustom’s first stint as BPP trustee was noisy and negative [his overriding contribution being the resiling of the Punchayet from its agreement with the Disposal of the Dead with Dignity-Action Group (DDD-AG) to allow the use of a bungli at Doonger­wadi by those opting for cremation] his social work had never been doubted. And the emotion that swept the Palamkote Hall at the condolence meeting called by the Punchayet testified to the many personal connections his work at the grassroots had established.

Armaity Tirandaz: "carrying on my husband’s legacy”

Though her first thought had been to refuse the suggestion to stand for election, she said she thought over it and decided "it would be my tribute to Rustom. I had refused his suggestion to stand for election to the Bombay Municipal Corporation when this ward was designated a ladies’ ward. He had been very keen, saying he would be there to back me up…I have done this only for Rustom, not for myself and not for anybody else.”

At the condolence meeting allegations had been made against Kersi Randeria of AZA (Alert Zoroastrians Association). It was averred that Randeria’s pursuit of the 104 flats allotted by the earlier board under the vigilance of the Charity Commissioner (CC) to people who had appealed to the CC, had stressed Rustom out, leading to the heart attack that felled him. When asked her view on this allegation, Armaity admitted there was "stress on Rustom because he was so vociferous before the CC” but this was "not as stupid as saying a lady gave hai (a curse)!” She further noted, "At my maiden speech at Panthaky Baug yesterday I said we could use her (this lady with the potent curse) on the Indo-Pak border!”

Asked what she hoped to achieve in the Punchayet, Armaity said, "Whatever visions and goals of Rustom had remained unfulfilled. I will do whatever I can for the poor and needy. Different ideas may come up.” Her manifesto was still "in process” at the time. She and her sons Faredoon and Darayus said it would be distributed in a day or two. They said they were remodeling Rustom’s e-mail manifesto — one that he had sent out in short snatches. Since the promised manifesto had not appeared even after four days, Parsiana looked up Rustom’s on Google. It contained such promises as refurbishing the "sagging image of the BPP,” provide the community youth with aid in personal development, public speaking, marketing and salesmanship, inter personal behavior, time management, etc. He also advocated education abroad by borrowing from American banks as they offered 20-year loans for education at five percent per annum if a US citizen could guarantee it. Obviously, this was before the great global financial meltdown.

Rustom had also advocated redevelopment at Dadar and at Nowroz Baug under the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) scheme and replacement of leave and licence agreements with tenancy where possible. An ombudsman and an arbitration cell for the community’s property and marriage disputes, the extension of the Venture Capital Scheme to include cooperative housing as also a BPP guarantee of bank loans for housing were other items on Rustom’s trusteeship menu.

Armaity’s manifesto when it arrived a day later notes, "I am aware that my decision to contest this election is being projected by my opponents as my wanting to cash in on a sympathy vote based on my husband Rustom Tirandaz’s untimely demise. Nothing could be further from the truth. My decision to contest is motivated purely by my desire to carry on my husband’s legacy of service to the community. I also believe that I can bring a healing touch to the BPP and our community, which is being torn apart by divisiveness.

"I believe that one of the blind spots of our Punchayet leaders has been the female half of our community. There is a gold mine potential for welfare work and meaningful leadership in the ladies who constitute 55 percent of our community, and I am very happy to take up this challenge.” Preventing a public road from cutting through Panthaky Baug and an agiary/dadgah in Borivali seem to be specific additions to Rustom’s goals. In most other respects, his guidelines have been echoed by Armaity.

"I am in favor of preserving the covenant. Even if it is legally safeguarded by leave and licence, so be it. Even if I am on leave and licence nobody is going to throw me out.” As for the right of sale of tenancy, she says it’s fine if required by people who want to move closer to their place of work or need to encash it to sustain themselves. So long as it is not done on the sly, no underhand means are employed and the BPP gets its share of the proceeds as a landlord, Armaity sees nothing wrong.

As for flat allocation, she maintains that the Punchayet’s Merit Rating Scheme (MRS) has been functioning for three decades. "Let us follow the system. Eventually everybody will be housed. How do you accommodate 104 people in the 74 or 75 houses that are available? What about the deserving people on the waiting list who have not been included so far? …60 or 64 people have been cleared for allotment. The rest are pending because they did not fit into the MRS. Then it was just a battle.”

Would you be in favor of challenging the CC? we ask her. "I can’t give my comment. The deserving should get it, but everything is being stalled because of this whole issue…We need more transparency. People on the waiting list are not aware of their status. Once the list is computerized it will go up on the BPP website. There will be no question of out-of-turn allotments.”

Armaity has never attended a meeting of the Federation of Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India and admitted candidly, "I do not know what they are advocating” and refused to opine, adding, "I would like to attend one of their meetings.” The senior most BPP trustee after the chairman is the joint honorary secretary of the Federation and Rustom had been designated for this position.

On Doon­ger­wadi Armaity has "firm traditional views. The dakhmas and bunglis should be used as per the trust deed. I do not advocate a crematorium or a crematorium ni bungli,” she said.

We ask her views on intermarriage. "Rustom was very firm about tokham kyani (racial purity) and I think I am too. He always advised our sons to find girls from within the community.” So the question of accepting the children of intermarriage was a nonstarter: "I am too much of a traditionalist,” she smiled.

Armaity is steeped in Rustom’s memo­ries. "People came to him even when he was not in office. He had such an image of honesty and goodwill…The community — com-ni-unity — was like his extended family. He did not harbor ill will to anyone. He did not approve of the Shiv Sena but always helped individual Sainiks. Even beggars have been coming into our house, using our facilities; the children and our extended family have been so supportive… There was not a single person who did not offer help when he died. We could encash on that goodwill,” she ruminates. The Tirandaz family, particularly their sons Faredoon and Darayus, were upset that when Rustom’s long-term battle cry for adult franchise in the election of BPP trustees was realized, others like AZA and Adult Franchise for Progress (AFP) claimed ownership of the concept.

A quiet, gentle person, the daughter of Nariman and Soona Karani schooled in Panchgani, Poona and Bombay thanks to Nariman’s transfers as he was attached to the civil side of the military engineering corps. After completing inter science at Jai Hind College she opted for physiotherapy at the KEM Hospital annexe near the Tata Memorial Hospital. For the past 13 years she has worked with the Jai Vakeel School for children in need of special care as an honorary physiotherapist. She has taught swimming to the girls of the Dadar Blind School and been reading English to visually impaired second and third year college students for the past five years, notes her curriculum vitae. Providing voluntary physiotherapy to young and old, helping out at the cancer hospice in Bandra are tasks she has willingly undertaken. During the Bombay riots in 1992 she helped coordinate the evacuation of victims with the help of her two older sons Behram (since deceased) and Faredoon, providing them with food and medical aid while Rustom was similarly engaged in another locality.

Armaity says she and Faredoon feed about 24 animals once a day, everyday, in and around the Dadar Parsi Colony where they live. It is a substantial meal to help them get through the day, she notes. A love for animals from early childhood ("We always had a dog in the house, mummy loved parrots”) has found vent in active animal welfare and an association with the Bai Sakarbai Petit Hospital for Animals for the past 18 years, the latter eight as a member of the hospital committee, as notes her CV. "I try my best to help any animal in distress,” she says, recounting how one of the goats at the Rustom Faramna Agiary had to be hospitalized recently to help rid it of the misery of maggots. There are other stories of animals and of people who have crossed her path, the creatures who fall by the wayside in our fast moving consumer world. Not all of them came through, thanks to institutional apathy or their own indifference, Armaity tells us sadly.

The lady has the support of four current trustees of the BPP. According to a letter published on the WAPIZ (World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis) page (March 14, 2009) Paeterasp Patel, president of the Khareghat Colony Youth Association, former chairperson of the Central Bank of India Homai Daruwalla, builder Boman Irani, journalist Bachi Karkaria, doctors such as radiologist Jimmy Sidhwa, neurosurgeon Keki Turel, physician Behram Bun­shah, gynecologist Fram Irani and 15 others have gone into print to say: "It is the commu­nity’s good fortune that Rustom’s wife Armaity has decided to stand for BPP trusteeship in order to fulfill her late husband’s incomplete mission…For those of you who do not know her, Armaity Tirandaz is a strong and determined lady in her own right, with a track record of working for several social causes in her independent capacity. Equally important to know is that Armaity carries that same badge of scrupulous honesty, which her late husband wore throughout his decades in public service.”

"Will your article bring me more brickbats?” she asks with a laugh, adding, "I got a fallout even before I filed my nomination!” Then she wonders why people in the community can be so nasty. "Is it lack of moral fiber? Personality trait? Identity crisis that makes people so critical?”