My Parsi

Every evening at 7 p.m., my grandmother would light a divo.  The matchstick, even before it would touch the wick would light up the pictures around it, most of our departed loved ones, some of our prophet, Zarathustra. It wasn’t a magical moment or some divine celebration. It was just a simple act. Every evening at 7 pm.  

This simple act became the core of everything I learned about what it is to be Parsi, how it is that one practices their religion, and what they choose to make of it.

  I am a Parsi and I will always have that. How? Because my Parsi lies in things that you can never touch, that your rules will never dictate. 

Let me show you what your rules dictate. What your ostracisation actually creates. 

I want you to picture me, as I often do myself, sitting outside the fire temple on a bench, almost punished. My hair starting to grey, my wrinkles moist from tears of a pain I would wish on nobody. I sit there, mourning the death of someone I have known all my life. In the distance, I hear the priest, he drops the name of my loved one as he recites the prayers, and requests the god that does not accept me anymore for the peaceful passing of my own family. I catch glimpses of the operation, the familiar flowers, the silver ses, and a sea of white. I cry because not only is my loved one gone, but your rules have taken away my final goodbye from me.

My children will not make sense of why I cry, but they will also not make sense of your prayers, your priests, your claim to good thoughts and deeds – because you never gave them a chance. I will tell them of a religion I once fully gave my heart to, how they took my heart and made it sit on a bench. When they ask me why, I will tell them because I chose to love. And Parsis do not reward love. We apparently shame it. 

When they give me a confused look, I will open my mouth to tell them that when I die, they too will face this, that they will be told that my body is not worthy of our funeral proceedings. That by loving and loving alone, it has become too filthy for our resting place. I open my mouth to assure them that despite all this, not to lose their faith, that they are still parsi  – but I am not very sure I even want them to be.

So I sit there in silence, the prayers continue in the backdrop, in this picture you are painting, add my sobs, add the cries of my children.

That is all your rules and laws are doing. It’s tearing families apart, stripping people of their right to say goodbye, and slowly but steadily contributing to the population’s decline.  

Now let me repeat myself,  I am a Parsi and I will always have that. How? Because my Parsi lies in things that you can never touch, that your rules will never dictate. 

If you come to my house, on the door you will see my parsi hanging, it’s often in the form of delicate beadwork, you will see detailed beaded flowers and butterflies welcoming you – and everyone you know. My parsi is in malido puddings made by loved ones given in bite sized amounts on a happy day. You could find my parsi running from an aunty at a wedding with uncooked white rice in her hand. My Parsi is often served at a lunch table on a Sunday afternoon with dhansak, beer and smiles. 

Once a year, you will read of my Parsi between the lines of a text message saying “happy roj birthday, bawi”, I will read it as I eat my parsi – mithoo dahi and sev on a happy morning. My Parsi is at the bottom of a bottle of rum, that was shared between my father and his childhood friends as they tell me about the eccentric bawas they knew growing up. People that were so genuinely themselves, that their stories alone made you their friend. Every now and then I joke that a mad Bawa could park his 50-year-old bike in the drawing room of his house as his greatest achievement and I find my Parsi in the laughs that follow.  

My parsi sometimes sits at the steam of a banana leaf, that is flattened by a glass before eating, it then jumps from there into my excitement for the food that is to be served. Once served, my Parsi takes the form of a gracious host, checking in on me and my meal. As I say “bao fine”, my Parsi, simply becomes gratitude.  You could sometimes find my Parsi, dancing in the center of a cards table, where the real winner is the cute lady with the best gossip. Sometimes, my Parsi is disgusted at the sight of a vegetarian table. 

Between my collarbones, my Parsi sits in the form of a pendant. When my grandfather died, 4 young boys immediately came to our house to help with the funeral, that is my Parsi. At the start of a new year, my Parsi smells like sandalwood, it sounds like happy chatter.  One December evening,  my Parsi became a delicate thread, carefully embroidered onto a silk saare, being told “She would have wanted you to have this.” When I held that saari, my Parsi became lighting a divo – a simple act. Every evening at 7 pm.  

My Parsi was never entering some mystic forbidden temple, it never presented itself in a ritual that I had to follow every time I took a bath. My Parsi never felt the need to be authenticated by some right to vote. 

Your rules, they only dictate traditions and act as threats to scare me.

But my faith? the faith of every Parsi woman? That my friend, is unshakable.