Season for apologies

It seems clear that this is the season for apologies. First, Bal Thackeray wanted an apology from Sachin Tendulkar and later, from Shah Rukh Khan, after insulting them both. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena wanted apologies as well as did the Bharatiya Janata Party. Why should the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trustees lag behind? After all, the BPP is now just as much a political organization! Therefore, they malign a trustee and then ask for an apology from him. The community should demand an apology and mass dissolution of this fake BPP board. Whatever the differences are, settle them in the boardroom instead of writing all the nonsense that is being printed week after week in the WAPIZ (World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis) Page of the Free Press Journal. The Press is open to all communities and such slander appearing in the newspapers is ruining the good name that we have built up over centuries.

What is being done is for self gratification because of extreme egotism. It has been proven that all the things that these bigots say are not prescribed in our holy scriptures for us to obey and follow. The money spent in circulating the newspaper could well be used for more productive services. Similarly, the money spent on dinners and feasts should be ploughed into more worthy causes. To increase the frequency of the BPP Review merely to have one more platform to rant and rave is another avoidable expenditure.

Our community members are made of better stuff even though they were swayed by the rhetoric at the time of the elections. Let us preserve our good name. Let us not drag it in the mud just to please chairmen and so-called scholars who, in the first place, as trustees, have no right to take action in religious matters.

Also, running signature campaigns is meaningless; one can sit at home and create such a document! JAMSHED IRANI

Calcutta

iranjams@yahoo.in