Practise Your Religion of Birth
PRACTISE YOUR RELIGION OF BIRTH
By Neville Sorabji Gandhi (nevillebawa@gmail.com)
Many Religions having different Customs, Traditions and Rituals are being practiced on this earth. All the religions have more or less common teachings of Goodness and Virtues. I am not comparing any one religion to the other because each of them has its own set of rules and followers. In absence of religions, the world would have been different, perhaps akin to a dark jungle.
I am particularly concerned about our own Mazdayasni Zarathushti Religion that is being misunderstood and misconstrued of late. A few members having malafide intentions are misleading our brethren who are either disinterested or careless towards practising the religion.
It is recorded in history that our ancestors fled Iran to save our religion and to preserve its sanctity for generations to follow. But recently it is observed that a few heterodox Parsis with the help of a few Juddins are trying to distort the teachings of our Holy Prophet Asho Zarathushtra. The print media and even Television and Internet are being used to mislead the people and consequently give a bad name to our Community. Our Community is known for Quality and Not Quantity and has Pioneers in almost all the fields and Industries. Parsee Zarathushti Community is known for its Peace Loving Attitude and is also well known for Philanthropy. Our community despite being small in number has earned reputation that is unsurpassed. Our ancestors practised Mazdayasni Zarathushti Religion with Sincerity and Dedication. However there is a change in the thinking of +today’s generation. Most of our brethren are concentrating in acquiring materialistic achievements and seldom try to fulfill spiritual and religious duties.
Recently there have been write-ups in the Press by our very own Parsis openly propagating and supporting Conversion and Mixed-marriages. People have started defying and negating our Holy Scriptures to suit their choices. Our community has survived for thousands of years because our ancestors righteously followed the religious scriptures by marrying within the community and never converting people from other faiths. Our Ethnicity and Parsipanu has been maintained by Sincere Religious Practices.
Faith is the foundation of any religion. One must have Faith in the religion of birth. Our religion will survive for many more years if we continue to lead our lives according to the Tenets of our Religion.
MAY PAK DADAR AHURA MAZDA BLESS US WITH WISDOM TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT PATH.
Seated in a chair at the head of a rickety old sewing machine, Mr. Hosi Daruwala matches its battle-weariness with some of his own. At 71, he is a small, shriveled man who looks tiny even under layers of sweaters and thermals that he wears to fight the slight monsoon chill as he stoops over his sewing machine, hard at work. Over the thermals, he wears a yellow polyester shirt and trousers fastened by a belt that is stretched until the very last hole, and then a little more. His tiny frame is a telling scar; a wound that he earned very early on in his battle with Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia ; a type of blood cancer he fell prey to and lost over 30 kilos because of in a single month in 1999. This changed his life and set him on a course that helped him transform the lives of several others battling Cancer like him, and he has done it in his own unique manner. Homegrown’s Reza Noorani and Neville Sukhia spent a day with him as he went about his regular life and this is the story they unravelled.