Vulture Culture
July 2001 – 13’
Bombay |
Harley:
On the shores of India's most wealthy and modern city – a flame burns
for one of the world’s oldest religions. The secretive ceremonies of Zoroastrianism
– are the private domain of Bombay's distinctive Parsis. |
0:00 |
Parsis praying |
These followers of the Persian prophet Zarathrusta worship god through the elements. |
0:34 |
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Today it’s water, though nothing’s ever
done without the purifying force of fire. This divine spark of the soul is
usually off limits to outsiders. |
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Mirza |
Mirza:
We revere fire as the representative of the almighty. We revere fire
as the glory of the almighty. We revere fire as the master of the house. |
1:00 |
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Music/Chanting |
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Harley:
But the house is deeply divided over the disposal of Parsi dead. For
centuries they've been taken to the Towers of Silence to be scavenged or
picked clean by vultures. |
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Towers of Silence |
Cremation and burial are banned, but the
vulture culture's in trouble. The vultures are fast disappearing, and the
dead are being left to rot for days, even weeks. |
1:36 |
Karanjia |
Karanjia:
One does not like one's body to rot, and create problems for others. |
1:49 |
Mirza |
Mirza:
If a member of any other religion choose to cremate, we cannot say
anything. But when a member of Zoroastrian religion chooses to cremate, we
have to make all the efforts to stop it. |
1:55 |
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Godrej: I don’t quite remember when I saw a
vulture last. Maybe a few years ago I think. But I do see a lot of bodies
just lying there for months on end and it’s polluting the area, it’s
polluting the air, it’s not hygienic. |
2:11 |
Map |
Music |
2:28 |
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Harley:
Business runs in Parsis’ blood. This entrepreneurial spirit's meant that
this tiny community -- just 75,000 in
a city of 16 million -- has prospered. |
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Inside dairy |
Bombay’s famous Parsi
dairy has delivered reputedly the city’s best milk, yoghurt and sweets since
1916 – every single day. And since then, not a lot has changed. |
2:58 |
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Urvaksh:
This is actually silver which is hammered into very thin foil, it's
edible. |
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Harley:
Urvaksh Hoyvoy
wants to drag this declining empire into the 21st century, and the
world market. It's a case of adapt to
the modern world or fade away. |
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Urvaksh |
Urvaksh:
It’s difficult for the older generation to understand that -- they are
afraid -- the fear is of losing something. They believe in trying to grow
without change. That’s not possible. |
3:28 |
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Harley: Are Parsis stuck
in the past? Urvaksh:
(laughs) Some of them are. |
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Rusi Nararian:
This chair was used by my father for a very long time, till he died.
After he died, we’ve kept it vacant in his memory.
Harley: How long ago was that?
Rusi Nararian:
It was 31 years back. In 1970. |
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Harley:
It's been empty all that time. |
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Rusi Nararian:
Yes, yes, yes. Harley:
As a reminder… Rusi Nararian:
This is his photograph. |
4:03 |
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Harley:
But not everyone’s in love with tradition. This was once Bombay's
busiest dairy. But it’s steadily losing customers to cheaper competition. |
4:08 |
Harley to camera |
Harley:
The Parsis came to India's west coast more
than 1,300 years ago – fleeing Muslim persecution in their Persian
homeland. Since those desperate
beginning, most of them have settled here in Bombay, and they’ve prospered to
become one of India's richest and most tight-knit communities. But the very
traditions which have kept the Parsis together are
now threatening their survival. |
4:20 |
Towers of Silence |
The tradition causing the most
controversy lies in the Dunawardi, the Towers of
Silence. Shrouded in trees and mystery, it's here on Bombay's most expensive
strip of real estate, that the Parsis have
traditionally been laid to rest. |
19:44 |
|
The aim is to stop the rotting body from
polluting the sacred elements. They're left to be cleaned up by vultures,
once as common Bombay as seagulls at Bondi. Problem is, the vultures are falling off
their perch. Numbers have dived by 95 percent over the last decade. |
5:00 |
Rahmani and Harley look at vultures Super: Asad
Rahmani Bombay Natural History Society |
Rahmani:
We suspect that there is a virus or sort of a pathogen, which is
killing them. Because the symptoms are very, very clear. They die, they
remain there with their drooping neck for many weeks and then they die, either
on the nest or they fall down from the trees. |
5:25 |
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Harley:
This crisis for the vultures is bringing to a head a clash between Parsi orthodoxy and the modern world. |
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Karanjia at desk |
At 82, Bujor
K. Karanjia, looks like he’ll live forever. The
former Bollywood magazine editor turned historian
arrives at work at 8 o’clock, 6 days a week. As a Parsi
– he wants to be cremated – and believes the high priests have got it wrong. |
5:53 |
Karanjia |
Karanjia:
What we say, we say as Parsis that the dungawadi is common property for the Parsis.
Every Parsi has two rights – he has the right to
choose his mode of disposal of his body and he has the right to use this
infrastructure for prayers, the infrastructure that is already there, that is
dungarwadi. |
6:12 |
Mirza |
Mirza:
No, in the Zoroastrianism, in the religious matters, there are no
choices. |
21:33 |
|
That is suicide… the work you used… That
will be the suicide. |
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Music |
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Parsi priests |
Harley:
A wedge has been driven between the orthodox high priests and the Parsis' civic leaders – the panchayet. They’ve accepted that to burn or be buried
is a sign of the times. And they want to open the Towers of Silence for all Parsis last rites– however they’re disposed of. |
6:56 |
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Music |
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Karanjia |
Karanjia: Having taken this decision, there’s
been so much controversy that they have now kept it in suspension. |
7:20 |
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Harley:
It's paralysed the community? Karanjia:
Yes. |
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Bombay |
Harley:
The Parsis are moving towards building a
special vulture aviary. But no-one knows if it will work. Matters aren’t helped by the endless spread
of Bombay's concrete jungle. And just
as the vultures are dying out – so too are the Parsis. |
7:34 |
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Music/Singing |
7:54 |
Parsi wedding |
Harley:
Parsis love a party. They’re a gregarious
lot who love food, a bit of drink and a sing-a-long. They were the darlings
of the British Raj -- educated, entrepreneurial and
European in their tastes. |
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But while the Parsis
are outgoing, they’re also inbred.
When they first took refuge in India their pact with the local Hindu
king stopped them from marrying outside their ranks. |
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Mazreen |
Mazreen: I wanted a Parsi
guy. That was one thing very clear for me that I would marry a Parsi and I think Bezaad fitted
all my counts, nearly all my counts. |
8:42 |
Bezaad |
Bezaad:
I think the Parsi community is on the
decline, so we feel that it's better, we feel its better to have our children
also marry within the community. |
8:54 |
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Harley:
And like most good Parsi couples, they plan
for no more than two children. |
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Mazreen |
Mazreen:
Two children you bring them up properly. I think that it’s better than
having three or four, and not being able to take care of them. Both of us
working. |
9:18 |
Wedding |
Harley:
But small families – and a
growing number of young Parsis marrying outside their community – mean numbers
are dwindling. |
9:27 |
|
Parsis pride themselves on being fair-skinned
and fair-minded. To be Parsi is to be pure bred
-- and those who contaminate the tribe
are damned. |
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Harley walks with Smita
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Smita Godrej is
heir to the mighty Godrej industrial dynasty. Their
wealth’s bought the best of Bombay penthouses -- complete with a birds eye
view of the Towers of Silence. |
9:56 |
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She may live above the towers but she
won’t die in them, because the priests took away her death rites when she
married a Hindu. |
10:10 |
Smita |
Smita:
He said all children of women who’ve married out of the community are
illegitimate. So those are very, very nasty things that they said about us. |
10:18 |
Smita looks at book |
Harley:
Orthodox priests won’t recognise Smita’s
children as Zoroastrian. Though this ban does not apply when Parsi men marry outside. |
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Mirza:
It is an exclusive custom, doctrine, practice that we have to marry
within the community. We cannot increase the number at the cost of our religious
tenets, at the cost of our religious customs, at the cost of our religious
practices. |
10:37 |
Parsi priests |
Harley:
The priests regard the Zoroastrian faith and Parsi
bloodline as one and the same, and any attempt to bring in outsiders is
viewed as threat. |
11:06 |
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Riches are also at stake -- many elders
fear non-Parsis will plunder the community’s
wealthy trusts and philanthropic funds. But without change the Parsis themselves may face the same fate as the nearly
extinct vultures. |
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But the Parsis
are resilient. They’ve kept the same sacred flame burning behind these walls
for 1,280 years. |
11:31 |
Temple at Udvada |
In the tiny town of Udvada,
north of Bombay -- the Iran Shah temple’s been re-built four times – though
the fire has never gone out. It’s the Parsis most
sacred and secret site, and today they’re celebrating its birthday and their
identity. |
11:40 |
Meher |
Meher: To belong to the Zoroastrian community
means that your soul is spiritually very highly evolved. That it belongs to a
very exclusive group of souls who in nature have reached a certain stage of
evolution. That’s what it means. |
12:00 |
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Harley:
That sounds very exclusive. It sounds rather superior. Meher: Yes it is. Exactly so. |
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Harley:
Certainly there’s nothing endangering Parsi
pride. But the community is struggling
with how to live and how to die.
Famous for helping others – the Parsis must
now help themselves. |
12:22 |
Karanjia |
Harley: Is the Parsi
community facing extinction? Karanjia: No, I don’t think so. I don’t know, by
numbers there seems to be a danger. But I have such a strong faith in the
survival and the adaptable attitude of the Parsis
that I don’t think the community could ever die out. I just can’t bring
myself to believe that such a thing could happen. |
12:36 |
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Music |
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Credits:
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Parsis Reporter: Jonathan Harley Camera:
Manesh Mehta Editor:
Simon Brynjolffsen Producer: Tony Chapman |
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