A place for the dead
There may be just a few thousands in number and is feared that they are heading towards extinction in India. But they have managed to keep a close knit community where the outsiders have not been welcomed so happily. I am talking about the small parsis community in mumbai. Usually known to keep themselves out of controvorsies, the photographs of naked, rotting bodies piling up and a recently-shot 15-minute video of the same at the Towers of Silence and has a created a huge furore in the Parsi community.
These pictures were taken by a 65-year-old parsis women who was apphaled to hear frm the khandiyas (traditional bier bearers who carry bodies to the towers and the only men who are allowed entry into the wells) that her mother who recently passed away will be rottening away for more than a year or so with no vultures to be found in the heart of the city. And inorder to provide justice to those have crossed over to the other world Ms Dhun risked the comunities wrath to spread awareness that the old practice of disposing of the dead wherein the deceased are left in the wells for the vultures to pick on has failed and that the community needs to also adopt other ways to give their dead a dignified burial.
Read more here
My take on this :
I wont say that the community should change the traditional practice, but definetly people need to realise that with the city population exploding by the seconds, the system is not working at all. Instead they need to take measures so that the system does not crumble or be open to allow the community to find alternatives. Afterall who would want to see their loved ones suffer in their after life too. Finally there is one question which is haunting me - Does by beloved city always need extreme pictures to clean up its mess ?
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is it not possible for the people who maintain the wells to also have some vultures in cages or so or may be bring them when they are young so they always stay in that place ?
that way age old practice need not be abandoned and also a better way of cremating the dead is possible.
@bbc abc ; yeah it is one ofthe suggested ways but they have not been able to materialise this idea yet… butsurely this will help to a major extent
I read about this last evening and was reminded of a story my friend had told me. Many years ago, he had discovered a rotting human hand in his balcony. He stays near the ToS and the hand must have come from there via some crow or vulture. Surely not a pleasant experience. Anyway…
Matters of faith are matters of faith but I agree with the basic premise that practices need to keep up with the times. I am not sure if this practice is viable in future.
But more importantly, I would like to know what the young parsees think. For example, our Arzan here. Or Dilnavaz. My friend - who has married a non-parsee - refuses to reveal his thoughts and I respect that but that leaves me with no insight into what the current generation thinks. Their thoughts are more important than the previous generations as I see things.
This community has given this country a lot and I have love and respect for them despite the stereotypical idiosyncrasies. Outside India, I met a parsee in SFO Bay Area and another one in UK and both experiences were wonderful. May their tribe thrive.
I read about that in the Mumbai Mirror too, maybe a solution would be to move the tower of silence or start another one farther away from the city.. The parsi community can buy up a large area of land,forest it appropriately to avoid buildings coming up around it. That way, maybe jackals and vultures which used to frequent in the past can frequent again and the ancient practises kept intact..
Yes but how long will that forest remain a forest - given the explosive urban growth? Also, if it is too far away moving daed bodies there is another problem.
@aditi & @dadoji: With time people need to alter their believes. Am sure that it is difficult to change / challege somecultures which we n and our forfathers have grown up with, but as they saying goes “If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.”
Viewer,
I have read the article in its entirity. However Mumbai Mirror links never ever work after they day the articles are published. Hence always copy paste the entire article.
The article did not do justice to the topic.
As a Parsi myself, this topic has been raging in our community for years now.
The lady quoted in the article is a lay person and what she has said is purely her opinion and hearsay.
There is no simple solution to this.
Your saying that the community should change is being very unsensitive. Many other communities and religions have practises that might seem contrary to popular belief today. Do they change ? No.
40 years ago when the buildings around came up, they were made aware that the towers of silence are used for the disposal of the dead. Still they built the tall buildings and used every trick in the book to then get the towers of silence shut down and moved. This, when the towers of silence were built on what was then the outskirts of bombay in the 1700’s.
The lady who took the photographs, has basically shown the worst disrespect one can for human beings. Even in wars, people refrain from showing images of dead, unless the motives are to incite violence, as the Al jazeera does.
The solar concentrators that were put in place decompose the body and turn it to bone ash within a week.
Yes of course things break down. So if she took those images at that one time that the solar concentrators broke down, she should have had the deceny to find that out and put it upfront.
Trying to sensationalize an issue without getting to the facts is immature and immoral.
I am not making excuses here. There are problems in the community and we are in dire need of strong proactive action. But doing it this way is not the solution.
There is a deep divide between those who want change for change’s sake and those who want to continue with traditions.
The problem lies in that those who want the change, dont have the balls to move on and start something new.
They want to have their cake and eat it too.
Thats not possible
So the solar concentratirs do work?? Then howcome one of those workers there said that The body would take a lot of time to decompose??
But I do agree with you, Arzan, it is absolutely gory to take images of dead, rotting bodies. Before taking such pictures, the person concerned would have had to consider the fact, that not only would that be sensationalism but also exploitation and indecent exposure.
Even if a change is not possible, I dont think any Parsi or human for that matter would like to let bodies of people from his community rot for years. I am sure if there is something that can be done, and the solution is feasible, it will be done. From my experience, I have realized that Parsis are pretty intelligent..
Pragni….
Anyone can say anything they want. And even what is said can be taken out of context completely.
The solar concentrator have been in place for about 4-5 years and they are working.
Taking pictures just for the heck of proving a point and not realizing how it affects the individuals concerned is crazy.
One does not need to cut oneself to prove that there is blood flowing in our veins…now; do we ??
Not being very well versed in the Zorastrian traditions, I feel compelled to point out a small piece of information some people are failing to recognize. From what I understand, vultures are utilized to ingest the flesh of the dead and release the souls. Seems to me the fact that these vultures are becoming almost extinct is the issue here. If these vultures are almost extinct how would the souls be released? This is a classic example of what can happen when we do not tend to our wildlife on this planet and just how important this particular species is to a culture.
Now bearing in mind the apparent essentially vital need for these vultures in the release of the souls of the dead, we must now be confronted with the other result of the lack of vultures in assisting in the process of releasing the soul.
Decompozing bodies present a rather dangerous health situation in dry conditions. Not to mention the rise of those health concerns once monsoon rains begin to fall. Have we so quickly forgotten how the tsunami victims affected the consumable water sources of the regions?
If these bodies are not being consumed by vultures and are left to decompose for what maybe years, and rains come, this pollutes the water sources of regions which are filled with millions of people. Affecting not only the primary residence but residence of areas all along the path ways that rain waters follow.
In any religious belief, is it not the primary function of these beliefs to protect life which is presently living? In neglecting this fact, there will be “grave” consequences to allowing this tradition to continue. Unless of course some wise conservationalist and animal research facilities start to mass produce the vultures so they can perform their essential tasks at releasing the souls of the dead. In addition to mass breeding of these species, perhaps other methods should be considered when it comes to the cattle of the region since the medicines used on the cattle are having a direct affect on other wildlife which is the root cause of the illimination of the vultures. If the rotting cattle corpses which are consumed by the vultures is killing them, the question is also this: Which other species of wildlife is being affected by the ingestion of these cattle. If there are other species which are being affected, how does this impact other scavengering species which could in affect be possibly utilized in the assistance of releasing the souls of the dead.
Is it strictly vultures which are the species that releases the souls of the dead? If not, perhaps other species feed off of the dead as well.
In a nutshell, the loss of these vultures is obviously the root of the problem, which is resulting in the fact that these corpses are remaining on the surface of the earth affecting on a larger scale the earth itself and its occupants.
I respect anothers religious convictions. The problem here is that the religious convictions are not been seen through eyes which are willing to alter traditions for the sake of the living. If this series of events does not adapt to the reduction of the vulture species many more lives will needlessly succumb to a larger variety of health related illnesses. The cycle will not end.
It is important for us as humans to remember, we are put on this planet to preserve it for the current residents as well as future generations. In neglecting to adapt or alter some of our old world belief structures in order to prevent more senseless deaths from occuring, or from protecting the earth from heavier levels of pollutants are we not damaging it further?
Maybe the belief system could adjust itself to the utilization of such things as flies which would lay eggs in the corpses assisting in the breaking down of the body quicker. The eggs laid will turn into maggots. Dealing with flies seems a far easier task then trying to deal with contaminated water and earth.
Something to think about…
I just read some of what Arzan said…
With all due respect, indeed it is degrading to the families of the dead to take pictures of such things. However in the 21st century we are obsessed with seeing these images. Especially in the West. If this was not true movie and films which portray such grotesque images would fail to generate profits.
I think everyone is blocking this womyn into a category of someone who is hell bent on making money from these pictures. On the contrary, she is raising awareness of an issue of great importance to the people in the region. Solar panels perhaps are not the best method. They indeed create heat which may dry out the corpses, but does not aid in the decomposition of the corpses. It merely dries them out. If they are dried out and water is added, the result would still be dangerous because of the release of new types of toxins and bacterias into the environment. Again, I respect the idea, however, the burial of a corpse woould be far better so that the elements of the earth could work their wonders and speed up decomposition of the corpses.
Embalming actually prolongs decomposition as well as polluting the earth. We were made form earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. To bury the bodies woudl be far better, or, cremation. Since Zoroastrian tradition views fire as holy, how do they eat? How do they cook? Are they not utilizing fire for a means which it was discovered or given to us for?
What gets me is that every culture who has learned the use of a camera has at one time or other utilized this medium as a method to capture mans inhumanities against man. This womyn took these pictures as a way to send a few messages: the need for altering the method for the sake of the families, health issues and the dead themselves. I see this womyn gainingn nothing in monetary funds by the printing of such pictures.
The Jewish community still to this very day utilizes WWII photos as a way to keep alive the atrocities of WWII. They gain large sums of money for the printing of these photos as well. This womyn should be commended for her efforts to bring to light a potentially dangerous situation to the city and other residence of the surrounding areas.
If the sun reflectors are working then that brings up another question - if the reflectors are allowed then why not cremation? I read in the report that other options are available and that the lady who took the photos was not aware. If that is the case then why are these options not made known to the community at large and advocated.
I am with Arzan on some of the things he says but at the end of the day ground realities cannot be overlooked. The city has grown beyond anyone’s imagination. Does that mean we do not care about the rest of the population? Changes are happening in other communities as well - some faster some slower - is it then necessary to say let others change before I do. One has to look at what Rammohan Roy, Maharshi Karve and Maharshi Phule have done. It is then not better to support social reforms?
Yes, no easy answers but if the choice is between change and becoming obsolete I know what I would prefer.
I want to say though that for once the newspapers did the right thing by not publishing the photos. Indeed not a decent thing to do.