The dead in Darjeeling

The Parsi aramgah in Darjeeling, in West Bengal at the foothills of the Himalayas is "unlooked (after) and abandoned” discovered a reporter from The Darjeeling Chronicle who visited the cemetery located below Singtom Fatak in Singamari and wrote about it in the issue of May 22, 2016. There are no members of the community left in Darjeeling and the bungli of the aramgah is being used by drug addicts. The caretakers’ quarters are dilapidated, the pathways overgrown with wild bushes. Most of the gravestones have been destroyed with only a few remaining intact, the report notes.

The reporter has urged the families of those buried there "to take notice of the same” and contact the district magistrate or the department concerned to appoint a full-time caretaker to look after the cemetery.
During the British Raj many wealthy Parsi businessmen moved to Darjeeling with their families. Among them were the Dinshaws and Madans who owned hotels and cinema halls, the report mentions. One "Avari Saheb” was an iconic figure, while Dr K. N. Master belonged to the medical profession.
The report also dwells on the ongoing "disagreement between the orthodox and the reformists” in the community in India and says the debate is "between race and religion.” It opines that "radical changes should be made by the community to save the community… But the orthodox think that by being exclusive, they will be able to survive and preserve their ethnicity... the truth is that the Parsi population is in decline, and unless a race is dynamic it will die out.”