Why We Love The Jiyo Parsi Campaign

Self deprecation is a good thing. Self flagellation isn’t! Somehow, we’ve become so adept at whipping ourselves into a public frenzy, often over nothing in particular, that it’s tedious and draining.

Look at the extreme reactions to the Jiyo Parsi advertising campaign – to be released in print soon. Instead of taking a few moments to understand, perhaps even applaud, the enormous effort and well meaning intent behind this significant mission, callow community members are hurriedly tearing it apart.

It’s easy to be overcritical, cynical, defensive or even offensive. We are a community of self opinionated and largely self centered individuals who put personal gratification at a premium.

Larger issues like the survival of the community and the sacrifices needed for it count for very little. This is precisely why we’re in such a sorry state that the Government of India needs to step in and bail us out with Jiyo Parsi.

You would think this would make us happy, grateful and eager to make the most of the Rs. 10 crore grant and the opportunity to reboot and recharge.

Alas, it’s merely another excuse to crib and carp! Well, life is too precious to be wasted wallowing in niggardly nit-picking. So, we’re going to list the reasons why we love the Jiyo Parsi advertising campaign:

1.Its central message that Parsis should marry within the community and beget children before slipping into dotage is priceless. Staying single, inter marrying or delaying parenthood is not good for the community, even though it may serve our individual interests. We need to have the wisdom to understand this – and remedy it as best as we can. 

2.The campaign, comprising over a dozen piquant ads, uses humour and parodies Parsi eccentricities with elan. Even with serious issues at hand, it helps if we can share a laugh. That’s the charm of being Parsi! 3. Many of the ads encourage introspection by reinforcing stereotypes such as boys being overly attached to their mothers and girls having unrealistically high expectations. Instead of taking offence and getting huffy, it would help if we reexamined the premises around which many of us live our lives. 

4.The campaign spells out the template for happiness and fulfillment in wholesome terms: marriage, parenthood, togetherness, work-life balance, fun and family bonding. In our excessively ambitious and career-driven age, maybe this is the wake-up call our community needs to shift the focus from Me to We. 

5.Finally, what we appreciate is that this is a determined effort to see the silver lining. Here’s an all-Bawa ad campaign that celebrates hope. Despite our number crunch, with the latest fertility treatments, a change in mindset and wholehearted help from the government, we could see results if we just get on with it! 

To all those who are being negative about Jiyo Parsi, we humbly suggest: drop your defenses and raise a toast. Cute Parsi babies are waiting to be born!

Creating an Epic Congress

Mumbai is to host the 10^th World Zoroastrian Congress (December 27 to 30), and it promises to be an amazing opportunity to bring the community from all parts of the world together in a city that boasts a rich lineage of Parsi culture and heritage, as well as the largest concentration of community members.

Clearly, the task for the organizing committee, led by the Bombay Parsi Punchayet, is daunting. While details are still being worked out, the venue has finally fallen into place. According to the Congress website, the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) has been booked.

After examining various options (including the Taj Mahal Hotel and the NSCI), the NCPA was chosen as it is India’s foremost cultural establishment. It also has a very obvious Parsi connect with its Tata affiliation.

So, what else is in store?

While Congress sessions will inevitably offer a host of keynote speakers and a plethora of panel discussions, the trick is to get the right mix and sustain interest over four days. Not easy!
Often, organisors tend to get influenced by subjective considerations, personal obligations or the sheer embarrassment of having to say no to pushy people and permit them a place on the podium, to the utter ordeal of the audience.

It is, admittedly, impossible to make everyone happy. But a Congress of this magnitude must uphold lofty standards and offer inspiration, insight and an opportunity for the community to debate and dissent with intellectual ardour, but without personal vilification. For this, themes and moderators would need to be well chosen.

Of course, the food has to be superlative or the consequences will be dire!

Two wonderful add-ons have been announced.

The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) will host From Canton to Mumbai – The Story of Parsi Textiles and the Alpaiwalla Museum at Khareghat Colony is being restored for its grand reopening around the Congress dates. Both projects are reportedly the brainchild of two lovely ladies – Pheroza Godrej and Firoza Punthakey Mistree, who have earlier collaborated on the exquisite tome, A Zoroastrian Tapestry.

Entertainment, of course, will be the big ticket draw – it would be great to have a Zubin Mehta concert for the community around the time (wishful thinking!) or at least a Shiamak Davar show (surely he can be persuaded?), although the opening ceremony at the Gateway of India could provide enough scope for dramatic impact.

Through all this, the theme of the Congress – Zoroastrianism in the 21st Century:

Nurturing Growth and Affirming Identity – must be kept squarely in sight.

Unless we seriously nurture growth with a master plan for the way ahead and affirm our identity as Parsi/Irani Zoroastrians with fervour and faith, it will be an opportunity lost and just another extravagant (but pointless) waste of time, energy and money.

The onus is on us to make this an epic Congress. Can we rise to the challenge?

Something To Remember Us By

Whenever we hear of a tragic, untimely death, or even a much-awaited release at the end of one of those lingering-a-bit-too-long life spans, the pang we feel is only partly for the soul that has passed into the unknown, leaving bereft family and friends behind.
More significantly, it serves as an uncomfortable reminder of our own date with fate. No one is born to live forever. Yet in the bustle of our blinkered lives we tend to believe the bubble will never burst. Then, suddenly, it does – but it was always meant to, a little bit earlier or later.
We are immortal only to the extent of the values we immortalize. The young Naval Officer, Lt Cdr Firdaus Mogal, who bravely jumped to his death in Mumbai recently, in a bid to save a fellow sailor who had fallen off his submarine, will forever enshrine courage and commitment to duty that will inspire countless others.
Our lives are worth something only if they serve the larger plan of upholding the Divine Order that enables righteousness and the highest truth to triumph. This happens when we live a life of purpose. The late Lt Cdr Mogal not only lived on purpose, fulfilling his dream of serving the nation as a committed Naval officer, but also died upholding his purpose, courageously attending to the call of duty.
Blessed was he and his death is not in vain, because his life’s mission of service before self is now a beacon of light for all those who’re letting time pass them by without pursuing their purpose. Whiling away the days allotted to us and lethargically ignoring the impetus to live our best lives is an affliction that brings no glory.
Sometimes, it’s difficult to determine what our purpose is. At the Ava Roj Humbandagi, held at the Bhikha Behram kua, as a tight circle including a busload of young girls from the Ava Bai Petit School clustered around the sacred well, Ervad Dr. Ramiyar Karanjia spoke eloquently about finding our purpose through prayer.
Divine Order, he explained, guides every aspect of our lives and of all creation. It’s the inherent energy and intelligence that can cause a towering tree to grow out of a tiny seed, the sun to rise and set infallibly every day, the seasons to come and go, the tide to ebb and flow.
Divine Order can direct our journey through this lifetime, if we invoke Ahura Mazda’s grace. Our prayers become a powerful tool in helping us attune our life’s pursuits with our higher purpose.
I believe other benchmarks are the noble lives of those who passed on, whose good works become the guiding lights of our destiny. Every soul leaves behind an incomplete story. We exist to further the unfinished aspirations of our ancestors.
May the Fravashis of our dear departed and the Divine Immortals bless our community and give us the wisdom to carry forward all the values our illustrious Parsi predecessors lived and died for – so this ongoing, inspiring legacy of luminosity remains something to remember us by.
editorjamejamshed@gmail.com

Parsi Politics: Desperate Times

With the elections oncoming, dishing the dirt on one probable Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) candidate after another seems to be the community’s pass time. As the date draws closer, and the contest gets more capricious, the daggers, which are already drawn, will dig in deeper still – and the wounds will be more vicious.

Even the US Presidential elections, keenly as they are being contested around contentious causes, appear like a gentle garden party compared to our street-fight style of ballot battling.

ACRIMONIOUS ACRONYMS
What a pity, isn’t it? Increasingly, one is becoming disappointed by our lack of grace. For years, one has held on, steadfast to the notion of all we stand for – integrity, impeccable public conduct, personal decorum, a value-based upbringing that isn’t violated by opportunism, and respect for others.

All of that seems to have been subverted in the past few years as a slew of Acrimonious Acronyms slug it out for power. Whether it’s AZA, WAPIZ, ARZ, BPP, AIMZ, PRG, WZO, AFP, and whatever else, all of them have been embroiled in petty politicking and desperately trying to outmanoeuvre each other, whilst simultaneously attempting to manipulate the community into supporting their ideology and actions.

The result is the Parsis are today so fractured, so faction-ridden, so frayed that we have lost the very essence of who we are. And each of the Acrimonious Acronyms has played its part in the process. In trying to grab their slice of the community cake, all they have left are crumbs.

Average Parsis are not concerned with the perennial warring between groups. While ideologies can be debated and points of view countered, petty personal attacks are pointless. They only sully the ethos and atmosphere of the community, filling minds with mistrust and hearts with misgiving.

SURFEIT OF SCEPTICISM
Today, there’s not a single leader, or possible leader, amongst Parsis, who has not been shred to shards. Nobody trusts anybody any more, least of all if the person is standing for elections. Attacks are launched, fast and furious. This leaves the community confused, cantankerous and crushed. After all, if you cannot trust anybody to lead you, what purpose are the forthcoming elections going to serve?

As it is, nobody gets along with anyone. If the final Parsi Punchayet Board is going to be a coalition, with differing ideologies and personal egos pulling in very contrary directions, with the Trustees themselves having been discredited by their detractors, what are we thrusting the apex organisation of the community into – irretraceable chaos?

Perhaps, all those who are whipping up passions like egg whites in a badly set soufflé need to understand that we’re all falling flat. What we need, more than ever before, is cooperation and communion. Differing points of view have their place, but not at the cost of our unity.

Mutual respect will have to replace rancour and disruptive rivalry. There are far too many issues we need to focus on for our very survival as a community today, and these are far more crucial than our differences. We need Trustees who understand this, and inspire faith in the community that they can collaborate effectively. We can sometimes agree to disagree. But to be disagreeably disagreeable all the time is defeating.

May the coming months bring us the unity we so desperately need, and the leadership to take us ahead.

(This post first appeared in Jam-e-Jamshed)