Saal Mubarak! With these words, Parsis across the world would have greeted each other tomorrow as they heralded the arrival of their new year. Another greeting heard across the agiaries (Fire Temples) would have been Navroze Mubarak!

I studied for 12 years in a Parsi school and so this community holds a special place in my heart. This small, minority community comprises of the followers of Zarathustra. The Parsis in India are those who fled Persia (modern day Iran) due to religious persecution and arrived in western India (modern day Gujarat, Kutch in India and Sindh in Pakistan).

There’s a very sweet story that was told to me in school about the Parsis’ arrival in India. When they arrived in Gujarat, the leader of the Parsis, the head priest or Dastoorji, sent a messanger to the local king asking for his permission to stay in his land as refugees. The king sent back a bowl full of milk. The Dastoorji looked at the bowl of milk his messenger brought back, added a spoon of sugar to it and sent it back to the king. The King understood the message and gave them permission. Soon one of the people in the Parsi group asked the Dastoorji what just happened and he replied that the bowl of milk the king sent over indicated that the land was currently occupied and full and he didn’t want to do anything to disrupt the lives of his people. By mixing sugar in the milk, the Priest sent a message that the Parsis will do nothing to disrupt the land and it’s people and instead, like how sugar adds sweetness to the milk, they will assimilate into the land and only add to the sweetness of this land and not take away anything. And this is how the Parsis adapted the Gujarati way of life – in their language or dialect as well as the dress. Parsis speak a dialect of Gujarati, which we call Parsi Gujarati and women also adopted the saree as their main form of dress.

The more recent arrivals of Parsis, those who arrived in late 19th and early 20th centuries, fleeing from the repressions of the Qajar dynasty in Iran are differentiated from the original Parsi settlers and are called Iranis. This Irani community is smaller than the Parsi community, though both profess the same religion, but religious customs may be slightly different.

In the centuries that they have lived in India, the Parsis, have integrated themselves into the Indian society, while at the same time, maintaining their ethnic individuality.

This community has been faced with dwindling numbers for a while now, the most significant being childlessness or having less than two numbers (which is basically the total fertility rate) or migration. Demographic trends project that by the year 2020 the Parsis will number only 23,000 (less than 0.002% of the 2001 population of India). The Parsis will then cease to be called a community and will be labeled a ‘tribe’.

During the British rule of India, because this community was highly literate and extremely fluent in English, they occupied many important places in the East India Company.

One interesting aspect of the Parsis is that instead of burying or cremating their dead, they place their dead in a Tower of Death where vultures peck the body and pick it clean. Once the bones are bleached by the sun, they are pushed into the circular opening in the tower. They believe, this way is the most ecological way, where even the dead are used as food by vultures and no part of the polluted human body is pushed back into the earth (by burying it) or into the atmosphere (by cremating it).

The Parsi place pf worship is called an Agiary in the Parsi dialect or a Fire Temple in English. The most holy place for Parsis in India is a place called Udwada in Gujarat. Legend says that one of the groups of refugees brought with them the ash of one of sacred fires from Iran and this ash serves, even today, as the bed for the fire in the Udwada Agiary. I remember friends from school going to the Agiary which used to be opposite our school before important exams. Unfortunately, as a non-Parsi I can’t enter the Agiary.

The Parsis have made considerable contributions to the history and development of India, all the more remarkable considering their small numbers. As the maxim “Parsi, thy name is charity” reveals, their greatest contribution, literally and figuratively, is their philanthropy.