May The Fest of Lights Usher In Less of Fights…

                            …And Lots Of Unity And Happiness!

Dear Readers,

Isn’t the human spirit just amazing! How divine and wonderful is the unyielding human inclination, which looks to hang on to and eke out happiness, however meagre, from joyous and celebratory occasions, even in the midst of the century’s worst global catastrophe! 

The onslaught of the pandemic since early this year, and its various, enforced, social confines and overall restrictions, as also the lives it has sadly and unfortunately claimed, may have, to a good extent, dampened and stifled the essence of festivity and the spirit of joy. How could it not – with the quiet literal ‘deaths and destruction’ of global economies and livelihoods, leaving millions jobless and impoverished? 

Even so, across the world, and especially in India, the collective human spirit has always risen to the festive occasion, even if with low-key revelry and subdued excitement, being confined to one’s homes. Be it Navroz or Diwali or Christmas – there is no denying the essence of joy and cheer in the air. And since being Parsi is pretty much synonymous to being happy, our legendary Bawa joie de vivre reigns unfettered! We love life, we love joy, we love food, we love celebrating all festivals – from Diwali to Halloween, we love the good things – but more than all else, we love to laugh – and we’d be damned before we let this pandemic dampen our spirits anymore or wipe the smiles off our faces!

And despite all of this, every few weeks, we find community members divided over some religious or political matter or the other – all waging a virtual battle erupting onto social media platforms with our Whatsapp Warriors, Facebook Fascists and E-mail Extremists, up in arms, advocating, nay forcing down their beliefs, onto the rest. As if this sad, public exhibition of our inability to ‘Agree to Disagree’ wasn’t enough, many times, these caustic battles get picked up by the mainline media and become national or state-wide news – greatly tarnishing the very image of Parsis, which was painstakingly built with a lot of hard work by our visionary ancestors, and which each one of us prides in.

The pandemic has done more than its share of teaching us all some really valuable life-lessons, as a race and as individuals, and in our case, especially as a community pretty much on the verge of extinction. The power and the need for unity is one of the biggest lessons we have learnt, as a minuscule, close-knit community. May the shine and sparkle of this Diwali bless our community with unity, happiness and growth; May this ‘Fest of Lights’ set the precedent for ‘Less of Fights’, and lots of prosperity, laughs and fun times!

Happy Diwali to all!

Have a lovely weekend!

– Anahita