Who makes the rules for Zoroastrianism?

Did the Persians who lived during the days of Zoroaster practice the religion exactly the same way as we do today? The more I read and understand our religion the more evidence comes out that its not true.

So how did we get to a state of getting acceptance where what we practice today is now part of the mainstream religion. Its quite obvious that a lot of the ceremonies that the Parsis follow in India are heavily influenced by Western Indian culture. The same goes for the Zoroastrians in Iran today that have a heavy Middle-Eastern influence on what they practice as religion today. So what leads to that tipping point where something that is alien to our religion then starts getting accepted as part of the religion? Since we dont have a worldwide central religious authority for Zoroastrianism, it seems like these changes must have come from organic growth of a practice and then its ultimate acceptance as mainstream.

This leads me to the topic that I saw being discussed recently on two seperate email threads. Not one of those mass mailing threads but rather a small private distribution. One of them had been initiated by a very elderly gentleman and trying to find out how he can get his now adult son accepted into the Zoroastrian religion since he was married to a non-Parsi. The email was sent to a self-proclaimed leading authority on the religion. I felt rather sorry becuase here was a very elderly gentleman trying to see how he could get his son who wants to practice the religion into the Z fold. The other thread was started by one of my family friends trying to discuss the acceptance of children born out of a Parsi/Non-Parsi wedding into the religion.

Isnt it funny that these folks were actually asking for opinions, when its funny that even my dog has an opinion. This is our religion people, dont let egotistic self-proclaimed knowledge bearers tell you what to do.

Atleast in matters of religion just go ahead and do what your heart says is right. My heart says that no God or his prophet in his right mind would have ever said that “we are a class apart, so you cannot be us but we can be you if we want to”. Imagine teachings being seen through a spyglass that spans 2000 - 3000 years. The amount of distortion is enormous.

Lets just go ahead and keep doing the right thing till the tipping point is reached and it becomes part of mainstream.

Think about it the next time someone asks you, what do you think can folks married outside our religion still be Zoroastrians?

Lage Raho Kissing Car

Recently watched this movie “Lage Raho Munnabhai”. After a long time this was a original Hindi comedy movie, what a breath of fresh air. Well the reason we wanted to write about the movie was the portrayal of the Parsi guy. We loved the character and the reality it reflected (the thing about him wanting to go back to his teenage girlfriend who was a non-Parsi). Gone was the pheta sporting comic Parsi bawaji with pretty wife on arm scooting around in a Jalopy with wife flirting with strangers (read hero she met on the road). This was a well played character with some very good nuances like the Kissing Car story (very much like how Parsis keep their cars … like second wives) and how he scoffs Sanjay Dutt when he takes the car for a ride but forgets to lock it when done.

Anyways if you’ve not seen the movie, we highly recommend it. Not for the Parsi guy, but just cause its a nice light hearted comedy that’s hit the Hindi movie screen after a while.

Goodbye 2006 .. Welcome 2007

So now that the celebrations for the New Year are done its time to sit down and think of the year ahead and the year that we lived through. 06 was a good year, after all it was in this year that after so much procrastination we finally decided to put together ParsiWorld. It wouldnt have been possible without the support and ideas from our family members and some of our early adopters and we want to thank you all for that.

As we look to the new year there are lots of ideas, contributions and suggestions from all over. So it surely looks exciting and we are ready for the ride. Keep on reading and contributing.

Back online …

We were out travelling for the last few weeks and had made a conscious decision to not get online unless it was an emergency. Good to be unplugged once in a while I guess. Well our travels took us to India of other places and we had a blast out there. Life is zooming out there and the Z community seems to be doing well … now if only we can start reversing the birth/death spiral. Who says we’re a dying community, you should go talk to some of our young ones.

Noticed that the site had a lot of junk posted all over and a lot of irrelevant stories had slipped in as well. We’ve fixed that now, one of our filters wasnt working as well as we thought.

 Did some sprucing up one the site as well. Got rid of the Events page based on feedback, since it wasnt adding much value and was usually quite outdated. Got a lot of new ideas from family and friends as well. Will be putting all of that into the site over the next few weeks.

Had a great trip to Udwada. The town is sleepy as ever and we love it that way.

Will try and keep the blog more current. There are so many things we wanna write about from our trip.

Laterz ..

Coronation of Pahlavi Shah of Iran (1967)

Recently we came across this very interesting archival footage on Google Video of the coronation of the Pahlavi Shah of Iran in 1967. While growing up in India my grandmother used to always talk about Iran and the Shah of Iran so it was really nice to see the coronation ceremony of the Shah of Iran. Albeit the footage is a bit old but it looks pretty good so we are sharing the video with you, hope you all enjoy it.

Pateti Mubarak to all our readers that follow the Kadimi Calendar

Pateti Mubarak to all our Irani Zoroastrian readers.

Pateti also lovingly called Papeti in India … So what is Pateti/Papeti … we Zoroastrians follow one of three calendars, Shahenshahi (most common), Fasli(old Persian calendar),and Kadimi(Shahenshahi calendar lags Kadimi by a month - I know there’s more to it but that’s how I remember it). Kadimi calendar is followed by a number of Irani Zoroastrians in India and other parts of the world … and today is their Pateti.

For those of us who always wondered what pateti meant, I found out this morning and so wanted to share. The word “pateti” is derived from the Pazend word “patet” and means ‘repentance’. So Pateti is the occasion of offering patet prayers (Patet Pashemani in your prayer books) or the prayer of repentance and preparing to greet the new year with a clean conscience. Hence it falls one day before New Year and is in the month of March for Fasli’s and sometime in July for Kadimi’s and in August for Shahenshahi’s.

So I’m guessing Pateti Mubarak means, congratulations on clearing up your conscience and begining a brand new year. Now how many of us really do that on Pateti. Well I for one start today …

Kaevan Umrigar - Parsi Filmmaker in the making

We recently read about and exchanged emails with a Parsi filmmaker Kaevan Umrigar, FTII graduate and currently based in India. Kaevan has a very interesting take on the community and though we’ve not seen his films yet (theyre in the mail) his writing and the synopsis of the films made for very interesting reading so we are eagerly looking forward to the films.

The most interesting of the lot for us was the one titled “The Last Parsis”, not only is it nostalgic and brings back memories of towns like Davier, Gholvad, Uran and Tarapore but it also gives us a peek into the future through hindsight (twisted I know). Some of these towns were teeming with Zoroastrians once and folks owned a lot of land and resources. Today they are a mere shadow of the past and in some way it speaks to me about the migrant nature of the Zoroastrian community. What we are seeing in Davier and Uran we might possibly see in Bombay and some other metros around the world ??maybe??

Below are the links to the stories and we will write in more detail about them once we see the films. They make good reading as well.