Excellent Parsi New Year Issue

Kudos to the team of Parsi Times for delivering another superb Bumper New Year Issue yet again. Your advertisements were absolutely right – your special issues are indeed collector items. Me and my whole family were very excited and delighted to read all the articles which truly celebrated our wonderful Parsi culture. Unfortunately, my mother aged 83 broke her spectacles and couldn’t read the paper, so I read out the two superb articles ‘Aapri Parsi Bhasha’ and ‘Lallo Poppo Pooch’ to her and that ended up getting the whole family of 7 of us together – my parents, wife, two children, my darling pet Brandy, and me – and laughing away and reminiscing the olden way of speaking and truly how we treat our pets indeed! Also, the winning entry of your ‘Bring Out The Story-teller In You’ contest was fabulous and reminded us that true happiness is when we share our celebrations with our family and loved ones. And it was indeed a great honour for the Parsi Community to be wished by the top politicos of India, especially PM Modi and CM Fadnavis in the Special Issue. Parsi Times is truly going places.

Without a shade of doubt, the Parsi Times has improved manifold in the past two years and is undoubtedly the best weekend read for one and all – young or old. Recent times, your new columns which are aimed at fostering progress and unity are also catching a lot of attention, just like your editorials. Brilliant job – keep up the good work at Parsi Times! Wishing all at Parsi Times and our glorious Community Saal Mubarak.

 

Tehmina and Jehangir Rusi Jussawalla

We wish the publication Parsi Times, the Editor and staff Sal Mubarak, Navroze Mubarak! Parsi Times is indeed the Mirror of the Parsi community. Thank you for the New Year Publication. It contains some beautiful articles. Sal Mubarak greetings from top Govt. officials, PM Shri Narendra Modi, Shri and Shrimati Fadnavis, our Vada Dasturji of Iranshah, Shri Kersi Randeria, Founder. This is something special and rare – to greet ‘Saal Mubarak’ to Parsi community.

Not only that, there are good articles like ‘Have our charities become toxic?’; Make your energy work for you; Hero From Hyderabad, etc.

Wish you and staff members of Parsi Times very Best Saal-Mubarak!

Ratan Mir

 

Roshan Bhathena

Dear Editor,

I just finished reading the Special Issue of Parsi Times for our Parsi New Year. It was indeed a pleasure to read all of the 80 pages of this special Navroze Issue. Every Saturday, I look forward to reading our Parsi Times, full of news and views for all age groups. Wishing everyone A VERY HAPPY NAVROZE! Keep up this good work. I would like to inform you that the sequel-article titled ‘Shirin’ printed in the Gujarati section of Parsi Times is written by my mother Erna Homi Persi. With love,

Roshan Bhathena (Wadia Baug)

 

Editor’s Note

We thank all our readers for your wonderful, heart-warming feedback for our Parsi New Year Special issue and your warm Navroze greetings. We regret not being able to publish all the mails and hand-written letters received, due to paucity of space, and to avoid repetition. Please do continue writing in to us and guiding us into making your favourite weekly even more enjoyable and informative! Thank you once again for all the Navroze wishes and words of encouragement for our Bumper Special Issue.

 

The Intermarriage Syndrome

However we may deny, the affinity towards the religion has reduced to vanity. We need to provide refreshments as an incentive to induce humdins to attend Humbandagi eg. at Dadiseth Atash Behram’s ‘Behram Yazad Prayer Hall’. We seldom rise above material desires and so we often end up associating faith with ignorance. Loyalty demands sacrifice and that is where we lack. When religious fervour ceases to survive, affidavits and oaths come into picture. Can the inter-married practise their respective religion without violating the norms of each other’s religions, when practices enjoined in one religion are forbidden in the other?

They fall in love never to rise again. Do those married outside the fold acquire all that they aspire from community brethren? We need to be liberated from our ‘passion’. One cannot gather courage of conviction unless the conviction itself is dignified. Let me cite my experience. A teenage daughter of an inter-married Parsi man was regularly driven to the Agiary by her non-Parsi mother. I inquired with the daughter, how she felt about her religiously isolated mother. Her reply left me spell bound. “My mother inspires me to be faithful to God, who is one, and not to the religions which are varied.” Does one need to be a scholar or PhD holder to make such a statement? Innocence is the fragrance of faith.

Maneck Panthaky

 

A Heartfelt Parsi New Year Wish

Here’s wishing all my Parsi friends, family and community well wishers a very Happy New Year. Saal Mubarak! May our community prosper and flourish in this, our motherland that has given us not just refuge here, but has made us one of their own, synthesized our culture into their own and the other way around too, enriching the fabric of India. In turn, in spite of our miniscule numbers, we have given in abundance by way of our contribution to the country’s development in every sphere of human endeavour, be it in the struggle for freedom, in politics, defence, education, arts, music, law, aviation, environment, philanthropy, sports, science and medicine, and also social and cultural activities. The nation in turn has appreciated our contribution by way of bestowing every possible honour from Padma Shree right upto Bharat Ratna and many more to our high achievers. India wants our community to grow by promoting the Jiyo Parsi project. It is now for our youth to do their stuff.

Any which way we go, in any corner of our globe, if there is a Parsi, he will be contributing towards that locale in some way or the other. One will find a Parsi right from down South in New Zealand, to Australia to UK, and in USA, Canada, maybe even in Alaska, doing his part for God and his country. This is something to be proud of, proud also to belong to the glorious ancient civilization and in spite of travesty of fate, we have survived, and even today we are a highly successful community wherever we go.

May dudh-ma-saakar community, however small, live in our motherland with our heads held high following the Zoroastrian virtues and prosper. May the different fractions of our community come together in peace and understanding of each other and our differences dissolve. May our youth go forth and multiply and we shall never have to worry about bogey the extinction!

Dara Khodaiji (dara_mk@hotmail.com)