I was seated on the Rajdhani Express, a passenger train, and was heading towards Mumbai. I got settled in the cabin and, as advised, I secured my suitcase with a chain and a lock, which was attached to a ring on the wall under the seat, in order to prevent night robbery when the passengers were asleep. I was traveling with Lila – the cousin of a colleague of mine from Delhi University, which I met at the station. I was going to Mumbai for the first time, to the capital city of the state Maharashtra, which was known until recently as Bombay. Lila claimed that it was probably the most densely inhabited city in the world, with a population of over 18 million and according to some statistics it had 29,000 inhabitants per square kilometer. She also told me that it used to be located on an eight island archipelago in the Arabian Sea, which after a huge infrastructure project in the 18th century was turned into an island with a natural port in deep waters and thus developed as a rich center of international trade, textile industry, banking, engineering, healthcare, informational technologies and certainly show business.
Lila was an ecologist who was now returning home after a central ministry meeting concerning the crisis over the control of water supply in India.
“Less than 10% of the water that flows in the main river basins and reservoirs is controlled. The other 90% is filled with filth, because of sewage and industrial and agricultural chemicals. Over 21% of all contagious diseases are caused by the unsanitary drinking water. Each day 1600 people die from diarrhea alone. Along with this, the problem of personal hygiene exists among the poor. It is due to lack of proper bathrooms, toilets, and the habit of not always washing one’s hands well. Let’s not even talk about the fact that water does not reach most parts of India. I’m a member of a non-profit organization that is establishing a large-scale informational and educational program for the owners of small and medium sized fertile land parcels. The goal is to introduce these people to effective rain water collection and conservation methods during the three months of the monsoon. If people do not start thinking differently, if they don’t build reservoirs and don’t learn to collect rain water in reservoirs for later use, I am telling you, the droughts in the next few decades will become deadly.”
“But where will people find money for such projects?” I didn’t understand.
“Not much is needed, believe it or not!” She replied and added:
“All the essential materials can be found everywhere – bamboo, rocks and mud. No complicated procedures are necessary. Every village can benefit from the use of water if the villagers collect it. Rain falls at an average of 100 hours in a year, yet it is around 400 million hectometers for the nation. How can a region like Cherrapundji for example (a city in Northeastern India in the state Meghalia, which is famous for being one of the most drenched cities in the world) get 11 cubic meters of water per year, yet struggle with the lack of drinkable water?”
“What options do you envision in the cities?”
“It is not complicated at all. It is enough for each house to collect water from its roof. Not only that, we are also discussing a tariff system – distribute no more than 200 liters per person for free, in order for the water to be accessible to all. Whatever quantity above the set limit is used, it will be charged. Waste and contamination laws are necessary, along with the decentralization of water control, in order for the local authorities to take part, rather than wait for someone else to take charge. In addition, initially, some kind of economic incentives or reward system needs to be worked out to stimulate thinking and efforts in the right direction. We need a consensus at the state and federal level. Eventually, information about successful projects needs to be gathered and sent throughout the nation. Personally, I am against foreign investors. They view our water as a stock. How can this be right, tell me. In some places they are trying to solve the water problem through privatization. Can you believe this? I mean, it is a natural resource that belongs to all of us! It is a question of conservation and distribution. It’s like the wheat – we have a lot of it, yet we are starving!”
Our conversation continued about the large amounts of wheat, piled up and saved in the country’s reserve. This is a widely discussed theme in the media and Lila opposed the reserves like many others, and termed the idea “a paradoxical fact.”
“Over 62 million tons of wheat have been collected with the goal of surviving a possible nation-wide famine. The last crisis occurred far before Independence, I think it was in 1943. Can you believe that the distribution of these reserves would provide around one ton to each family who lives below the poverty line? The government has resolved the problem of starvation on a national scale, which is not, actually, as complex a task as it sounds. The more difficult one is focusing on eliminating the constant malnourishment and starvation that goes on in so many places. It’s about the future of the country, because the consequences are irreparable. While generations are raised on a protein deficient diet, the results are very long-term – concentration problems, especially detrimental for education, and poor labor practices, and low productivity – all of which are tied to economic development.”
The man on duty for our train-car brought us tea in metal cups with no handles. Lila held hers somehow by the rim, looked at me and smiled. I did not know how to hold it without getting myself burned and left it on the side table by the window to cool down. She turned to him and asked him for a cloth napkin for me to wrap around the cup to drink it while tea was hot, and requested some cookies. Then she continued:
“I have so much work. It never ends. And there is always more. I get tired. The children grow. I just pray to Aredvi to protect me.”
I didn’t know what she meant and gave her a puzzled look.
“Aredvi Sura Anahita! She is the divinity of all the water on earth, all the rivers, lakes, seas and oceans in the world. She is the origin of all life. We pray to her for survival, wisdom and victory.”
Lila was a Parsee, the Parsees being a small, close-knit religious minority, followers of Zarathushtra (or Zoroaster), probably the first messiah-prophet, whose monotheistic teachings, preserved in the ancient book called Avesta, formed the Zoroastrian religion in ancient Persia around more than 2500 years ago51. The majority of Parsees now live in modern day India. Their predecessors, known in Persia as Zoroastrians, migrated from Persia to the western coast of India in large groups more than 1000 years ago because of the numerous coastal ports that stretched along the Silk Road, providing bountiful opportunities for transoceanic trade. The local Brahmins were not interested to be involved in the newly emerging trade because they considered it polluting. The migration of the Parsees, however, drastically increased after the fall of the Sassanid Empire, due to the spread of Islam and subsequent persecutions. At first, they settled in the state of Gujarat, but gradually they concentrated in the city of Mumbai, the state of Maharashtra.
“See, it is so fascinating how so conservative we are. Hinduism is more tolerant, adaptive, and assimilative. We purposefully segregate ourselves. We want to remain pure. It is our attempt to preserve our identity and ideology, save it I guess, from the threat of assimilation. Did you know that only a child born from two Parsee parents is considered a Parsee. The idea of conversion doesn’t exist. A child from a mixed marriage is accepted on an exceptional basis only after continuous public disputes and arguments. Actually, these tendencies of our community exist as a result of centuries of persecutions and battles for survival. It is unfortunate that for this reason there are not many of us left today. According to some statistics our number is quite small, no more than 140,000 overall, and spread all over the world and in India. Listen, even though we are a minority, our contribution to local and international culture and economy is quite substantial.”
I had no idea that their number was so small, but the names of J. R. D. Tata, the legendary industrialist, Zubin Mehta, the talented conductor, and the rock idol Freddie Mercury came to mind as some of the world-famous Parsees. I had read about the controversy in Mumbai in relation to their tradition to leave the corpses of the dead out in the open on top of specially built Towers of Silence on the highest point Malabar Hill, so the sun and the vultures can consume the dead body. This practice derives from the belief that everything is a part of earth’s natural cycle and processes. Recently, because of industrialization and ecological changes, and primarily because Bombay has grown and the Towers of Silence once outside the city are now in the middle of the urban sprawl, the number of vultures has drastically decreased, and the decomposition of the bodies has become very slow and especially unpleasant for nearby residents in certain sectors of the city51. I asked my companion about her opinion on this issue, and she broodingly answered:
“We live in new times. Some compromises must be made. This is not at all easy and cannot be solved through unwanted changes. My parents are still alive and I cannot imagine not performing the death ritual as prescribed by the ancient traditions which they staunchly believe in. The Parsees believe in the sanctity of the three natural elements, earth, water, and fire, as manifestations of the god Ahura Mazda. In order to avoid their contamination in either physical or spiritual sense, caused by the rotting corpse, it needs to be left far away from the three elements, elevated on either rocks or concrete so that no dog or other animal can reach it and thus eventually pollute the earth or water. But in Delhi, for example, in Calcutta, or in New York, this problem does not exist because there are no Towers of Silence built there. In such places people have been performing burials or cremations for decades. Well, with the exceptions of course, of those who bring the deceased to be disposed in the Towers of Silence in Mumbai, where we have the largest community in the world and the best facilities.”
Lila added that she was volunteering in a conservation effort by the Bombay Natural History Society aiming at increasing the number of vultures through breeding and artificial insemination and that they had had partial success. In addition, huge mirrors reflecting the sun had been strategically positioned on the towers in order to speed up the process of decomposition.
“Well, I realize that this is not enough to solve the problem – an average of 3 to 4 corpses are brought there per day, which require 100-120 vultures. My mother and father keep begging me to follow the rules with their bodies, so I cannot go against their will. I thought about this a lot and decided that when my turn comes, I will set an example with my body. I will probably ask my children not to follow the Dakhma-nashini and to bury me in an all-steel casket.”
I asked why this was the option she was considering and she replied:
“We believe that iron cannot be polluted and thus it will not emit or cause any pollution of the sacred elements if it’s sealed.”
She sighed and continued:
“See, I think that it not important how we leave life, but how we live it. If we follow the main message of Zarathushtra: ‘virtuous thoughts, virtuous words, virtuous deeds’ then evil cannot develop inside us and thus we are all protected.”
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51 Boyce, Mar. Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,1979.
52 Meghanien Dutta. “CCMB to breed vultures for Parsis.” Times of India, Sep 16, 2006. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2006-09-16/hyderabad/27794373_1_vultures-parsi-community-ccmb and Mathew Grant. “Breed vultures to save them.” BBC, Friday, 1 October, 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3708078.stm