On Our Republic Day

Here’s wishing the PT family and our community A Happy Republic Day!
India, towards progress, as You march on,
You, with gold and silver, we will adorn
And await the new Progressive India, that will be born.
May our enemies, of us, really scared be,
May they, the difference in this bold India see.
May our sovereignty, for every Indian, bring glee.
High fly will our flag, into the broad open sky,
Tall as the Himalayan peaks, may our energy lie.
May our name touch the sky and bring glory tall and high.

Afried Dastur
(afdastur@gmail.com)
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Earnest Appeal To Our High Priests

For the first time in many years, our high priests have stood together and regretted the Aramgah at Navsari Doongarwadi. Through Parsi Times my earnest appeal to all high priests is to provide us with commandments providing authentic guidelines on various religious issues to be able to keep unfortunate incidents like the recent Navsari Samast Anjuman meeting. In short, what’s allowed in our religion and what’s not. These guidelines can then be obeyed by one and all in the community when it is signed by all High Priests, and it will not be allowed to be challenged by people who wish to ‘change with changing times’.

We have been led by our beloved prophet Zoroaster since thousands of years and our community has been blessed by Ahura Mazda all along. In modern times, I would request all our High Priests to recraft and re-instill these commandments so that all community people are clear about the rightful acts to be followed as per our religion, stating what is not permitted in our religion, and avoid unnecessary arguments and chaos, which keeps on propping up regularly.

This will also pave way for the prosperity of our community and giving our h’ble Trustees at all Parsi / Irani Trusts time to focus on welfare of the community. Through Parsi Times, I request our High Priests to craft these commandments for our community to follow and prosper.

Gev Dalal (gevdalal@gmail.com)

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Vote For The Right Corporator

I’m an avid reader of Parsi Times and I was pleasantly surprised to see the front page of Parsi Times’ last issue carrying an advertisement of Makrand Narvekar for the forthcoming BMC elections. I’d personally like to urge all my Parsi friends who live in South Bombay to come out and vote wisely on February 20th and choose a Corporator who will truly make a difference to the locality. I’ve personally witnessed and interacted with Narwekar – he is someone who is directly accessible to one and all, not just before the elections but all through the years and he always ensures to look into and correct any issue we take to him. I speak for a number of Colaba citizens who have truly benefitted with his initiatives during his term – especially his projects like the Seniors’ Park and extra safety and security on the roads like installing CCTV cameras. He has also enhanced sanitation measures for the slum-dwellers; solved water availability issues in the area, facilitated environmentally friendly projects and he has donated personally towards providing good education for all economically underprivileged children. He has proven his steadfast commitment towards all sections of society.

My vote goes to Makrand Narvekar as he is very strongly connected with us Parsis and has shown great respect for our Community. In fact, this time he will be looking into areas that we desperately need a change in – like traffic decongestion, more parking space availability and I’m excited that he will be building a Doggy Park dedicated to our pets! I urge everyone to come out and exercise your right to choose a good BMC Corporator like Makrand so as to enable him to continue working towards the welfare of our area and our people.

Dr. Harvesp Panthaky
(harvesppanthakey@hotmail.com)

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Does An Unborn’s Soul Decide Abortion?

While I was impressed with Ruby Lilaowala’s exhortation to mothers-to-be to ensure their own physical, mental and spiritual perfection as it influences the unborn’s astral make-up, I might beg to differ on her hypothesis that an unborn’s soul might itself determine that it is not in spiritual harmony with its mother and should therefore be aborted.

Our Zoroastrian religion teaches us that we are fully responsible for the acts we do, which implies that we are indeed the masters of our fate. The good and the bad that we do is our own and we cannot seek escape by saying ‘it was ordained’ or push the credit or blame onto anyone else, including the soul of the unborn.

I do not, however, say that aborting a baby is, by definition, bad or sinful. There is never a ‘one size fits all’ in life, if one truly follows a religion of choice like ours. There may be situations when it may be advisable for a mother to abort. And there may be situations when aborting may be wrong and akin to murder. Parents must make a righteous decision based on their circumstance and bear the consequences thereof, if any.

Khurshed Pastakia
(knpastakia@gmail.com)

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Re: Letters To Editor In PT (14-1-17)

The letter by Piroja Jokhi, ‘May our tribe increase’, is very well written, thought-provoking and down to earth factual. Our community leaders should certainly give a thought to what has been stated and work in the directions shown. BPP and all the Baug Trustees could do right by the Community by establishing children’s day care centres in their respective Baugh and working in the direction of other sound and realistic observations made by Piroja Jokhi.

Letter by Nozzer Pardiwalla, ‘Winds of Change’ is also very well written – because of his acquired skills as a teacher, author, film maker, etc. But, it clearly conveys his total lack of understanding our religion and conduct of the said ‘meeting’ at Navsari on 8-1-17. I urge him to find out all facts about the so-called Navsari meeting and also acquire basic knowledge of Zarathushtrianism before penning anything about our time-tested, ancient and benevolent religion.

Roossi Talati
(roossit@gmail.com)