Bonding the Bawa way

Yet another acronym joins the long list of short forms the community in Bombay has for its associations and institutions. XYZ — Xtremely Young Zoroastrians is the brainchild of Hoshaang Gotla, a young community worker: "Happiness was the main aspect of creating XYZ. There was a lot of negativity that I was witnessing in the community. (Whether it was) at community gatherings or then just reading about it in the Press. I really didn’t want the new generation growing up with the same.” The prime objective is to build a sense of belonging and friendship amongst the Zoroastrian children between the ages of five and 15 by instilling a sense of pride for the community, says the Cusrow Baug resident.

Jashan in progress; Hoshaang Gotla

The fledgling organization started its first program with a Summer Camp (SC) in the sizzling month of May this year. Forty-eight children partook of activities at the Salsette Parsi Colony in Andheri and 40 at Bandra’s Tata Blocks, while Byculla’s Rustom Baug and Cusrow Baug in Colaba had an enrolment of 72 children each. The camps were created to distract children from TV, computers and mobile phones. Registration fees for the six-day meets held from May 11 to 17 and 18 to 24 was Rs 1,000. The youngsters were divided into teams mamed after ancient Iranian kings, queens and warriors. Forgotten games like langdi, sakli, kho kho, nargolio plus a new game — Crickball (a mix of cricket and football) — were introduced which had children egging their team members to win. Community creativity was gauged by innovative games like What’s Your Logo? (wherein each team made a logo to depict its name), Let’s Talk Gujarati (where each child is given a Gujarati word and he/she has to speak on it in Gujarati for a minute). The Scavenger Hunt brought out the most in the children who had to roam the colony and bring back one item for each letter of the alphabet. Dustbins outside homes were rummaged to find items. Even clothes were picked from clotheslines.
The fun quotient was the monajat session. Each team was given a monajat which had to be put to a different tune from the original or could be enacted. One team sang their given monajat to the tune of the popular Bollywood song Lungi Dance. Every child had to bring a tuck box of goodies worth Rs 50 which was given away to the inmates of the B. J. Home for Children at Matunga which they visited on one of the days.
For three out of the six days at the camp, lunch and Parsi snacks were served to the children courtesy Sir Ratan Tata Institute. The other three days saw the children sharing their snacks with newly made friends.
As the last day, May 24, was Avan roz, all the XYZites of all the four SC venues congregated at the Bhikha Behram Well for the Avan roz humbandagi — another Gotla initiative. A jashan was performed by two priests from the N. H. Karani Agiary with 13-year-old Ervad Farzad Driver, an XYZite himself. The children were transported back to their respective venues, at Rustom Baug and Cusrow Baug for the valedictory function. (The suburb teams had their valedictory function on May 17.) Parents were invited to lunch. Winning teams were given XYZ Champions trophies, cer-tificates and gift vouchers worth Rs 500 courtesy Westside. All the youngsters received participation cer-tificates and each had their photograph clicked to be put on the XYZ website.
The finale of the SC was a 4D movie at Atria Mall. Before departing mithu mohnu (something sweet given on an auspicious occasion) was done by cutting a huge XYZ cake with small XYZ cupcakes distributed.

Children engaged in various activities at the XYZ Summer Camp

Photos: Farokh Mojia and Zal Cassinath