Readers' Forum
“Entitled to enter?”
Regarding the statements of Prof Hoshang Moogat on our Agiary and Bejan Baug in his letter "Entitled to enter?” (Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, December 7, 2011), we would like to state that the Mota Shapur Daremeher at Mota Parsiwad at Bulsar (Valsad) was built and handed over to the Bulsar Parsi Anjuman (BPA) Trust Funds by the late Dhanjisha Cawasji Dhanbhura in 1938 while Bejan Baug was built and handed over to the Anjuman in 1928 by the late Pestonji Bejanji Shroff’s family. Both settlors had expressed their specific wishes.
The settlor of the Agiary, Dhanbhura wished that "Makan no vahivat Valsad Parsi Jarthosti Anjuman Funds naa trustee sahébo majkur adaran sahib né angé chaalta aavéla rivaj ané vahivat mujab hamésa karvo (The trustees of the BPA Trust Funds must manage the building in which the adaran sahib is housed and administer it as per long standing, hoary traditions).” This was the stand on which we did not consider Goolrookh Gupta’s request. We are sure that Rusy Shroff will also appreciate our stand on "acting according to the settlor’s wishes.”
The late Banoobai Jehangirji Ruttonjee had established the Rustomji Master Trust Funds in Hong Kong in 1951 and appointed the HSBC Bank, Hong Kong, as custodian trustee and the BPA as managing trustee. We have received handsome income from this trust and are greatly obliged for the generous donations made by the Ruttonjee family. We distribute this income to needy Parsi Zoroastrians all over India for education, medical aid, food grains and clothing. We also spend part of the income on repairs for buildings constructed for needy Parsis and religious places like the Agiary and Tower of Silence.
We manage our trust as per the trust deed and the wishes of the settlors. While we acknowledge that Rusy Shroff has guided us and helped us to manage the Rustomji Master Trust Funds, it is not true that he or the late Beji Shroff had contributed individually to build and manage our Agiary and Bejan Baug.
SAM R. CHOTHIA
Managing trustee
Bulsar Parsi Anjuman Trust Funds
The settlor of the Agiary, Dhanbhura wished that "Makan no vahivat Valsad Parsi Jarthosti Anjuman Funds naa trustee sahébo majkur adaran sahib né angé chaalta aavéla rivaj ané vahivat mujab hamésa karvo (The trustees of the BPA Trust Funds must manage the building in which the adaran sahib is housed and administer it as per long standing, hoary traditions).” This was the stand on which we did not consider Goolrookh Gupta’s request. We are sure that Rusy Shroff will also appreciate our stand on "acting according to the settlor’s wishes.”
The late Banoobai Jehangirji Ruttonjee had established the Rustomji Master Trust Funds in Hong Kong in 1951 and appointed the HSBC Bank, Hong Kong, as custodian trustee and the BPA as managing trustee. We have received handsome income from this trust and are greatly obliged for the generous donations made by the Ruttonjee family. We distribute this income to needy Parsi Zoroastrians all over India for education, medical aid, food grains and clothing. We also spend part of the income on repairs for buildings constructed for needy Parsis and religious places like the Agiary and Tower of Silence.
We manage our trust as per the trust deed and the wishes of the settlors. While we acknowledge that Rusy Shroff has guided us and helped us to manage the Rustomji Master Trust Funds, it is not true that he or the late Beji Shroff had contributed individually to build and manage our Agiary and Bejan Baug.
SAM R. CHOTHIA
Managing trustee
Bulsar Parsi Anjuman Trust Funds
Prof Hoshang Moogat replies on his and Rusy Shroff’s behalf
The late Jehangir Ruttonjee, CBE, left Bulsar (Valsad) at a tender to go to Hong Kong and Shanghai with barely any funds to begin a new life. His achievements are now legendary, having built three hospitals, contributed to the building of the Zoroastrian Centre, made a home for the aged and many more charitable institutions.
His late wife Banoomai, also from Bulsar, daughter of the Master family (my mother’s parents and grandparents) set up a trust for the Bulsar Anjuman to help the needy not only in Bulsar but in the whole of India. At present the BPA Trust Funds receives Rs 30 lakh or thereabouts per annum from this trust.
Banoomai, their maasi (maternal aunt), adopted the Shroff brothers Rusy and late Beji and their late sister Minnie when their father was lost at sea on his passage home from Shanghai for his son’s navjote, so now the Ruttonjee estate is the Shroffs’ legacy (my sister Purviz is Rusy’s wife).
From as early as the 1960s Beji and Rusy had great misgivings as to how the money was being utilized (I have an entire file of their correspondence, which itself would indict the BPA). In the 1970s the Shroffs stopped sending the BPA the remittance unless they gave proof of audited accounts. Even at this stage I took up for the BPA and convinced Beji to release the funds.
The BPA then built the Panchayat Blocks with the majority of funds utilized from the Master Trust and named them Valsad Panchayat Blocks. It was on my insistence that the BPA placed a photograph of Banoomai as the main donor. Even then it was evident that Rusy and Beji were not convinced (as per their correspondence with the BPA with copies and personal notes to me).
I recollect Rusy asking me what the BPA meant by a bungli to be built on the dakhma complex. I explained this to him and convinced him it was for Parsi families and would be a boon for that part of Gujarat, and so it was built and dedicated to the Ruttonjee family.
The BPA had by then built a huge complex for themselves at Bejan Baug with a block of flats and offices. It is ironical that they hosted the Federation meeting at Bejan Baug and received praise from WAPIZ (World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis) and all the other anjumans for the grand reception without more than a passing reference to the Shroffs. According to the trust deed, the Shroff family and the Hongkong Bank were the holding trustees to help the corpus in Hong Kong and send the interest and dividend accrued to the BPA, who were the managing trustees.
Realizing that they were under pressure, the BPA wrote to the Hongkong Bank asking them to transfer the corpus to them, citing better interest rates in India.
At this stage, realizing that Rusy, now nearly 93 years old, would want me to reply, I wrote a strong letter to BPA managing trustee Sam Chothia not to ask for the corpus to be shifted as it would — to use his own words — contravene "the wishes of the settlors.” I know that I did use some harsh words and so I apologized for the same. In return Chothia wrote me such a degrading letter which, if it were published, would itself expose his demeaning and manipulative nature. Taking advantage of the wording of the trust deed he forbade the Hongkong Bank trustees to correspond with me and to send the BPA the annual dividend directly. This, remember, despite my always taking up for them with the trustees in Hong Kong. But Chothia wanted absolute control.
We, the Ruttonjees, Masters, Shroffs and the Moogats of India really know the true colors of the BPA. What do they mean by saying that it is not true that Rusy and late Beji had contributed individually to build and manage our agiary and Bejan Baug? The large amounts received by the Rustomjee Master Trust Funds are solely due to their large-hearted contributions. They also send sizable sums to the Eye Hospital in Valsad and the B. D. Petit Parsee General Hospital in Bombay. These institutions very willingly and whole-heartedly send letters of thanks and audited accounts to Hong Kong with a copy and a letter of thanks to me.
We have absolutely no objection whatsoever to Goolrookh Gupta entering and praying at the agiary. Is it not hypocritical to say when it suits them that you can only be born a Parsi and then claim that a woman born of Parsi parents is now a non-Parsi?
I would like to remind Khojeste Mistree, who I had the privilege to teach in Poona during his formative years (Stds XI and XII), that Zoroaster was the oldest and most revered Prophet who tried to wean away people from their plethora of gods and meaningless rituals and worship the only one powerful God, Ahura Mazda. He gave his life to lead mankind from darkness to light. It is so ironical that we, the standard bearers of Zoroastrianism, should now shun his teachings and go back to the meaningless rituals. The glowing message of Zoroaster to humankind was: We use different names, different prayers but God is the universal constant for man. The ancients like Cyrus the Merciful would be horrified if they saw how their teachings have been perverted.
The late Jehangir Ruttonjee, CBE, left Bulsar (Valsad) at a tender to go to Hong Kong and Shanghai with barely any funds to begin a new life. His achievements are now legendary, having built three hospitals, contributed to the building of the Zoroastrian Centre, made a home for the aged and many more charitable institutions.
His late wife Banoomai, also from Bulsar, daughter of the Master family (my mother’s parents and grandparents) set up a trust for the Bulsar Anjuman to help the needy not only in Bulsar but in the whole of India. At present the BPA Trust Funds receives Rs 30 lakh or thereabouts per annum from this trust.
Banoomai, their maasi (maternal aunt), adopted the Shroff brothers Rusy and late Beji and their late sister Minnie when their father was lost at sea on his passage home from Shanghai for his son’s navjote, so now the Ruttonjee estate is the Shroffs’ legacy (my sister Purviz is Rusy’s wife).
From as early as the 1960s Beji and Rusy had great misgivings as to how the money was being utilized (I have an entire file of their correspondence, which itself would indict the BPA). In the 1970s the Shroffs stopped sending the BPA the remittance unless they gave proof of audited accounts. Even at this stage I took up for the BPA and convinced Beji to release the funds.
The BPA then built the Panchayat Blocks with the majority of funds utilized from the Master Trust and named them Valsad Panchayat Blocks. It was on my insistence that the BPA placed a photograph of Banoomai as the main donor. Even then it was evident that Rusy and Beji were not convinced (as per their correspondence with the BPA with copies and personal notes to me).
I recollect Rusy asking me what the BPA meant by a bungli to be built on the dakhma complex. I explained this to him and convinced him it was for Parsi families and would be a boon for that part of Gujarat, and so it was built and dedicated to the Ruttonjee family.
The BPA had by then built a huge complex for themselves at Bejan Baug with a block of flats and offices. It is ironical that they hosted the Federation meeting at Bejan Baug and received praise from WAPIZ (World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis) and all the other anjumans for the grand reception without more than a passing reference to the Shroffs. According to the trust deed, the Shroff family and the Hongkong Bank were the holding trustees to help the corpus in Hong Kong and send the interest and dividend accrued to the BPA, who were the managing trustees.
Realizing that they were under pressure, the BPA wrote to the Hongkong Bank asking them to transfer the corpus to them, citing better interest rates in India.
At this stage, realizing that Rusy, now nearly 93 years old, would want me to reply, I wrote a strong letter to BPA managing trustee Sam Chothia not to ask for the corpus to be shifted as it would — to use his own words — contravene "the wishes of the settlors.” I know that I did use some harsh words and so I apologized for the same. In return Chothia wrote me such a degrading letter which, if it were published, would itself expose his demeaning and manipulative nature. Taking advantage of the wording of the trust deed he forbade the Hongkong Bank trustees to correspond with me and to send the BPA the annual dividend directly. This, remember, despite my always taking up for them with the trustees in Hong Kong. But Chothia wanted absolute control.
We, the Ruttonjees, Masters, Shroffs and the Moogats of India really know the true colors of the BPA. What do they mean by saying that it is not true that Rusy and late Beji had contributed individually to build and manage our agiary and Bejan Baug? The large amounts received by the Rustomjee Master Trust Funds are solely due to their large-hearted contributions. They also send sizable sums to the Eye Hospital in Valsad and the B. D. Petit Parsee General Hospital in Bombay. These institutions very willingly and whole-heartedly send letters of thanks and audited accounts to Hong Kong with a copy and a letter of thanks to me.
We have absolutely no objection whatsoever to Goolrookh Gupta entering and praying at the agiary. Is it not hypocritical to say when it suits them that you can only be born a Parsi and then claim that a woman born of Parsi parents is now a non-Parsi?
I would like to remind Khojeste Mistree, who I had the privilege to teach in Poona during his formative years (Stds XI and XII), that Zoroaster was the oldest and most revered Prophet who tried to wean away people from their plethora of gods and meaningless rituals and worship the only one powerful God, Ahura Mazda. He gave his life to lead mankind from darkness to light. It is so ironical that we, the standard bearers of Zoroastrianism, should now shun his teachings and go back to the meaningless rituals. The glowing message of Zoroaster to humankind was: We use different names, different prayers but God is the universal constant for man. The ancients like Cyrus the Merciful would be horrified if they saw how their teachings have been perverted.
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