“Ill advice on Avan parav”

I read Rustom A. Havewalla’s comments on Nadir Modi’s address at the Avan Yazad nu parav ("Ill advice on Avan parav,” Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, May 21, 2010) and fail to see why he should feel hurt by Modi’s candid comments. Sweeping the community’s problems under the carpet will only make matters worse.

Every Indian Zoroastrian knows that two out of three marry out (in Calcutta it is 11 out of 12!); about four percent are cremated; and 75 percent believe that outmarried Zoroastrian women should not be ostracized, that they have an equal right to enter our fire temples and to be consigned to the towers of silence, provided they have not abandoned their faith.

Parsis must learn to live with the realities and move with the times.

B. T. DASTUR