“The nightmare and...”

Along with your cover story "The nightmare and the navjotes” (Parsiana, May 7, 2010) you have published a letter by Roshni Maloo titled "Innocent children” in which she seems to have used a wrong word in Gujarati. It is not ajithélu (contaminated). It should be aradhiyu which translates in Gujarati as half, meaning mixed breed.

In Persian there is a saying: "Napak zadeh mdarand oomid; zangi be soshtan, mgardad sofid [Do not have any expectation from one born impure (just as) by giving a bath to a black person he/she does not turn white].” In other words, a mixed breed cannot become a pure Mazdayasni Zarathushti even if his/her navjote is done by a renegade priest.

The word ajithélu also fits fine in this context. The booniyad, the aulaad, the tokhan (in simple language, the genes) of a pure Mazdayasni Zarathushti should have indeed been "contaminated” by the marriage between two divergent breeds!

Surely, the children are innocent. The guilty napaks (impure ones) are the parents and the renegade mobed. The blame lies fully and squarely with them.

Looking at the pragmatic side of the issue, it seems it would be quite a remunerative profession to be a renegade mobed. Even if he is debarred by his tolas (groups) and the high priests of the Zarathushtrian faith, and even if he is debarred from entering any agiary, financially he would be much better off as there will be many Goolrukh Guptas and Roshni D’Souzas asking for his services at whatever high price he may demand to perform the irreligious acts of conducting fictitious navjotes and lagans.

You have mentioned in your cover story that the nuns held two special prayers. May God have mercy on them, as they did not know what they were praying for. However, the renegade mobed knew it fully well. The nuns will be shocked if they know that they were praying for a sin to be successfully committed! The renegade mobed was compelling the innocent children to make a false declaration before the holy fire when they recited the kusti prayers in the course of their alleged navjote. In the Jasame Avanghe Mazda prayer they recite and declare: "Mazdayasno ahmi, Mazdayasno Zarathushtrish” which means: "We are Mazdayasni Zarathush­trians.”

The High Priests, on the basis of their deep study of our pristine Mazdayasni Zarathushti religion and after giving the issue considered and mature thought have categorically stated: "The children of a Parsi mother married to a non-Parsi cease to be a Parsi and therefore cannot be initiated into the Zarathushtrian faith” (see "An irreligious act” in the same issue). Thus, the children were not Mazdayasni Zarathushtrian which status is absolutely essential for the solemn declaration before the holy fire at the time of their navjote and at all times when they perform their kusti ritual. The High Priests have vehemently maintained that such an irreligious act which is simply a religious farce is being performed by the renegade mobed who has been debarred not only by his respective sect but also by all the priests of the Mazdayasni Zarathushtrian faith.

The children’s father Savio D’Souza, when questioned about why he left the item "religion” blank on their birth certificates rightly replied: "Right now they are following all religions.” Obviously it has to be so as they had no particular religion to follow ever since their birth being the progeny of a mixed marriage.

Our biological genes are irrevocably linked to the parentage of our birth. It is the same with spiritual genes which are inexorably related to the religion of our birth. In the unfortunate case of these children, as they cannot claim any particular religion as a "religion of their birth,” trying to hop into one at a later stage in life disrupts nature’s orderly process for the organized spiritual evolution of the soul.

The best course open to them is to follow the moral precepts of all religions, as appropriately put by their father, and lead a virtuous life. By all means they can study both Zarathushtra’s Gathas and the Bible, and adopt a sound moral course of conduct for their lives by absorbing the sublime teachings from both. They can as well attend church services and listen to sermons given by the priests.

It may be emphasized that it is not a "sin” if a child does not belong to any particular religion due to the parents’ mixed marriage. The soul may take it as an "experience” in this incarnation. There are many incarnations to follow when the situation can get rectified. The gradual human evolution from the earthly state of life to the sublime spiritual comes only when we pursue the divine purpose in the cycles of our life.

ERVAD KERSI KAPADIA

Singapore