Pilgrims’ progress

The Indore-Mumbai Avantika Express was permitted to make a special stop at Udvada to facilitate the progress of 40 Zoroastrian pilgrims from Madhya Pradesh (MP) to Iranshah on November 8-9, 2014, mentions an email from Gustad Anklesaria of Ratlam. He acknowledges that the Railway Board is always good enough to provide the Zoroastrians of MP with this privilege of a two-minute stop on their pilgrimage to and from Udvada, thanks to the efforts of Tehmton Anklesaria, vice president (North Zone) of the Federation of the Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India. This year the group, comprising persons of all ages hailing from Ratlam, Indore and Mhow in Madhya Pradesh (MP) went on a two-day pilgrimage, the seventh such trip by Zoroastrians from MP to Udvada during the past 20 years.
After their individual devotions, members of the group offered a thanksgiving jashan at the Iranshah. Nonagenarians from Mhow, Jehangir Mehervaid and his wife, are regular members of every such group that has visited Udvada during the last two decades. As a goodwill gesture a special concessional tariff was offered by the recently reconstructed Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Dharamshala where the visitors from afar enjoyed their two-day stay, the email notes.