Dear Readers,

We are an active community. It’s been yet another action-packed week as some of us decided to take up a vociferous stand on yet another issue. Fortunately or unfortunately, most of the action takes place only on social media, not in real life. This time it was the Anjuman in Navsari signaling the go-ahead for a proposed burial site atop the same land on which stands the holy Doongerwadi. There was a massive hullabaloo for nearly a week before the meeting (8th January), especially amongst numerous groups and people in Mumbai who are proud of and value their traditional beliefs.

There was a genuine sense of enragement and no effort or time was spared in writing lengthy messages and forwarding them ad nauseum to every Parsi on our friend list on Facebook or contact list on Whatsapp. However, come 8th of January, this huge uproar proved itself to be a social media ghost – the raging sentiments about “protecting Dokhmenishini” were there only virtually, as hardly even a handful of us attended the meeting in Navsari, inspite of it being a Sunday, a non-working day! As has been the case in so many other matters in the past, this was yet another social media uproar, that quite honestly, amounted to not much and achieved even lesser.

What it did manage to rake up, however, was headlines in the national media, yet again. And though most of the headlines simply mention how Navsari would be going ahead with the construction of a burial site, the underlying message to the nation remains the same, or rather, gets reinforced – that our community is divided down the middle when it comes to politics or religion. Religion and politics are two of the most vital pillars that hold up a community, with the former sanctifying its identity and survival, and the latter, its well-being. Need I say more?

In other news that makes community-history, Tata Sons, the holding company of the $103 billion Tata Group, the cynosure of our community, has for the first time, appointed a non-Parsi Chairman, Nataraja Chandrasekaran, erstwhile CEO and MD of Tata Consultancy Services since 2009, who has served the Tatas for over three decades. While a chunk of the community was hoping to see Noel Tata occupy this top position and keep the Parsi-Chairman legacy going, Chandrasekaran’s brilliant and celebrated professional portfolio leaves no doubt in our minds that he will steer our favourite conglomerate to newer heights. Here’s to the new leadership!

Also, here’s wishing all our readers a Happy Makar Sankranti today, which marks the onset of the harvest festival in India – but is celebrated with greater gusto as the festival of kites. May your skies turn into a delightful mosaic of whizzing colors, amidst squeals of joy and laughter brought on by the sugar-high from the delicious til-na-laddus!
Have a good weekend!

 

-Anahita