“It’s a small world”

At the Samast Anjuman meet held by the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) at Rustom Baug on November 12, 2011, the 2,000-strong crowd was amazed to see two bold Irani girls give BPP chairman Dinshaw Mehta a good drubbing with their questions. The trustees were alarmed when Mehernosh Fitter rushed onto the stage and could only pacify him in a feeble, helpless manner when confronted with truths they sought to conceal.

There was a buzz among those present when F. N. Forbes rose to address the trustees. In an unprecedented accusation, the Parsi Times had carried on that same morning a letter written by Forbes and five other residents of Wadia Baug alleging improprieties in granting NOCs (non-objection certificates) on sale/purchase of flats in their colony. The perturbed BPP chairman denied the allegation and said the accusation was maligning his reputation and amounted to defamation.

The entire Samast Anjuman meeting was a farce, with fact after fact being twisted, as BPP trustee Khojeste Mistree did in his response to the question about what constructive work the trustees have done in three years. The first big "twist” came when Mistree reduced the length of their tenure (to date) to two-and-a-half years instead of three. His second was to ask what could be expected from the trustees in such a short period. If nothing can be achieved during more than one-third of their term, why don’t the trustees resign?

One BPP trustee spoke of her great work in addressing the care and needs of old people. Another was heard glorifying how she bestowed her love on dogs at Doongerwadi. God bless her preferences over homeless human beings struggling for a dole at every conceivable Zoroastrian trust fund to barely manage to keep the wolf from the door. Have we forgotten the starving Zoroastrian child whose Hindu mother was turned away by the BPP higher-ups with topsy-turvy priorities? Dogs, it seems, have a much better life than the little girl who died of hunger.

The sole redeeming feature of the evening was a frank admission of regret by the new BPP trustee Muncherji Cama on the film shooting incident at Doongerwadi. In all sincerity he explained the position in the most honest manner, a clean acceptable rendering of an ugly incident.

The chairman sounded very disturbed about a contempt of court case against the trustees initiated in the Bombay High Court. For him, it is one more attempt to harass and malign the trustees. Can anyone explain why only at this juncture in the history of the BPP are trustees being picked on by numerous honorable, reputed people like those who won the case for the so-called "renegade” priests in the High Court which is now in appeal and mediation?

For all his posturing about fighting for orthodoxy, upholding dakhme­nashini, sudreh-tearing threats to the Maloos and anti-conversion zeal resulting in assaulting Dr Meher Master-Moos and her Russian acolyte, the BPP chairman will now face a clash with the trustees who represent WAPIZ (World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis) over his son’s recent marriage to a non-Zoroastrian. The anticipated answer that "we cannot stop our children” is unconvincing. In which case, he should stop interfering with others, especially since the chairman’s own brothers and sisters are married outside.

Throwing dust in the community’s eyes is an old pastime for the chairman. How well he was cornered by two questions posed in "It’s a small world” (Editorial Viewpoint, Parsiana, November 7, 2011). If the orthodox sentiment in the community is so strong, it has been rightly put to him to show why he teamed up with Cama during the last trusteeship election and alienated himself from the ultra-orthodox Mistree. And how did Armaity Tirandaz win over Maneck Engineer by a very narrow margin in the penultimate election, if the community is leaning largely toward orthodoxy as claimed?

RASHID G. KHOSRAVI