Colombo calling

After a span of 36 years, Ervad Asphandiar Dadachanji returned to serve the Navroj Baug Prayer Hall in Colombo for 12 days in end May 2018. Their present mobed Ervad Sarosh Sidhwa was in India on vacation for a month. "We (Asphandiar and wife Dhun) were welcomed everywhere," said the panthaky of Bombay’s Modi Sorabji Vachaghandhy Agiary. There is no permanent fire at Navroj Baug Prayer Hall that serves the approximately 32 community members there, he explained. A plaque at the Prayer Hall states that it was constructed by Meherbai Kapadia in memory of her husband Pallonji for "use as a residence for the Parsi priest and for the performance of religious ceremonies." Inaugurated in March 1927, the building was entrusted to the Colombo Parsi Anjuman. The current Anjuman trustees are Sohli Captain, Aban Pestonjee and Vishtasp Choksy.

In 1982, Asphandiar had served in Colombo for about a year. The car enthusiast had driven to Rameshwaram in South India from Nagpur in central India. Accompanying his four-member family (including two young sons) was "the fifth member," as he refers to his 1948 Morris car. The vehicle was taken by ferry to Talaimannar located on the north western coast of Mannar Island in Sri Lanka, from where he drove to Colombo. There were no proper road signs back then, he smiled good naturedly. Referring to the Sinhalese script, he noted, "Baddha jalébi jévha letters [all the letters were curvy like a jalébi (Indian sweet)]." The priest recalls that there were about 100 Parsis then in Colombo.

Parsiana had featured the enterprise and ethics that characterize the success of the minuscule Sri Lankan Zoroastrians back in 1999 ("The Zoroastrians of Serendip," January 1999). The Jawatte Burial Grounds, the Colombo Parsi aramgah is an unusual combination of burial ground and a dakhma. The old dakhma has been converted to a circular burial ground adjacent to which is the present cemetery. There are three separate sections in the aramgah, of which two are full and one is being used currently.

Speaking to Parsiana on a phone call on September 18, Sidhwa explained that about 50 to 70 people meet up at the Zoroastrian Club, the third community property in the city. "They organize parties… and gahanbars." Monthly meetings are organized for the youth. Robin Jilla functions as the Club president, Aban as treasurer while Daisy Daruwalla serves as secretary.

Sidhwa has performed navjotes for the children of an intermarried couple so far in his two-year stint at Navroj Baug. He was scheduled to officiate at a wedding in Colombo on October 20, 2018. "Both are Parsis from Karachi." The priest, who has earlier served fire temples in Delhi and Bombay, said that "I am not sure of this, but I think, yes, if the deceased Parsi is intermarried, death prayers would be performed."

Farrokh Jijina