The Parsi calendar still retains its significance
A few days before the muktads (all souls days), Parsi establishments
like the Union Press [printers of lagan ni chithis (wedding
invitations)], Karani Brothers (prayer book publishers), Kersaasp Kolah [gor
keri nu achaar (makers of jaggery and mango pickle)] and K. Wadia (diamond
jewellers) would print and distribute the Parsi calendar, always in red, print
bold enough for the visually impaired to read, rolled cylindrically (one had to
straighten it by putting it under the mattress for one night), to be hung on
the wall proudly below Zarthost saheb’s frame. Some calendars were plain
vanilla, while others provided details of the salgirehs (birthdays) of
popular agiaries and atash behrams; the eight chogadiyas of day and
night (12 hours of day and 12 of night sub divided into eight sub periods of
propitious timing; classified as excellent, auspicious, favorable, neutral,
beneficial, malevolent, inauspicious and inimical). Those were the days,
my friend, when children learnt by rote the 30 days and 12 months of the Parsi
calendar. (Today, most children ask, “What is a Parsi calendar?”)
The roz nu varas (birthday according to the Parsi calendar)
would precede the Gregorian birthday according to a simple formula: divide your
age by four; if you are 16, the Parsi birthday will precede your birthday by
four days, and if you are 100 by 25 days. If you prayed everyday, you would
know the roz and mah easily; if you prayed sometimes, then you
could always sneak a sly look at the agiary calendar. Even if you could no
longer rattle off all the names, at least you were expected to know the roz
and mah of your birthday and those of others in the immediate family.
The Parsi birthday, which once upon a time was the only birthday celebrated,
has now become a low key dress rehearsal for the “English” birthday, as it has
been dubbed. On the Parsi one, you eat sev (vermicelli fried brown and
garnished with thinly sliced almonds and raisins) and dahi (plain yoghurt);
offer sandalwood and light a divo at the agiary; and maybe have dinner at a
restaurant.
Apart from birthdays, practising Zoroastrians still remember certain
days of the Parsi calendar with reverence. Meher mah and Meher roz
is the day you visit the boon-bestowing popular Aslaji Agiary at Grant Road; if
you are not an early bird, you will have to await your turn to worship the holy
fire after jostling with stout humdins, some of whom stand transfixed praying
for their extended family, while those behind them try hard not to commit the
sin of uttering colorful expletives in the agiary. The other parav (when
the same Ameshaspand presides over both the roz and mah on a day)
is Avan mah né Avan roz. The infallible wish fulfiller,
Avan Ardavisur banu is famous for granting legitimate boons (if you really
desire something, the universe will conspire to give it to you), and her yasht,
the longest in the Khordeh Avesta, if recited with dedication and a
clean heart, can be miraculous. Even if you recite it only once, on her parav,
but without missing a single year, she is mighty pleased. We know friends who
pencil these paravs in their diary, electronic or otherwise, and will just not
miss a single year, even if there is a death in the family on that day and
whether they are in Paris or Poona.
Most Parsi calendars highlight two other important days — Zamyad roz
and Avan mah; Govad roz and Dae mah — on which devout
humdins perform baaj prayers on the death anniversary of Dastur Jamshed
Kookadaru and a behdin called Homaji. If, like the Catholics, we granted
sainthood (on second thoughts, thank God, we don’t), without the slightest
doubt the pious Dastur would be the first to be beatified. Panthaky of the
Kappawala Agiary for 43 years, his miracles of healing, both physically and
spiritually, including alchemically turning a brick into gold to finance the
exact deficiency of funds needed for construction of the Anjuman Atash Behram,
are legendary. His is a living presence, reverentially worshipped even today.
The behdin, Homaji, was falsely framed in a murder charge of having
kicked a pregnant woman and hanged publicly. He was exonerated after his death
and, as foretold by him at the gallows, his accuser did not survive Homaji’s
uthamna. He is a symbol of the spiritual power of a crucified innocent.
A brilliant solicitor and partner in a law firm of antiquity, now no
longer alive, would daily consult the Parsi calendar to know the birthday of
every agiary in Bombay and Thana, which he would first visit and worship,
reaching office at tea time.
On Adar mah, Adar roz, Parsis would paint an afarganyu on
the kitchen tiles near the cooking gas stove and celebrate the fires. On Bahman
mah, Bahman roz, they would eat khichdi né koru (yellow
rice and pumpkin purée) and children would visit homes like a desi version of
Halloween, selling homemade jellies (that was 50 years ago in Navsari). On
Fravardin parav, Parsis visit the towers of silence and remember the
deceased. On the Kadmi New Year Iranis would place cucumbers and other
foodstuff favoured by their dear departed near the dakhmas until some sourpuss
in the Bombay Parsi Punchayet banned it (we are told the Iranis are thinking of
finding substitutes for the cucumbers to place at the dakhmas). Come
Dae mah, the Parsi staff of big and small Parsi establishments, be
they banks or public sector companies, have jashans performed. The muktads
start on Ashtad roz né Spandarmard mah leading to the five Gatha
days when there is no roz and no mah (if you pass to the great
beyond during Gatha days, on which day will your masiso (first month
after death) and chhamsi (sixth month after death) fall is a riddle you
can ask Ervad (Dr) Ramiyar Karanjia, the only sensible learned priest, or
continue to survive on the ventilator until Hormazd roz and Fravardin mah,
that is the Parsi New Year.
Apart from the Shahenshahi calendar, there also are the Fasli and
the Kadmi calendars. Only The Mumbai Samachar publishes daily
entries from these calendars, in its daily panchang column.
A typical Parsi household would proudly display the Prophet’s portrait
and the Parsi calendar in the living room; these days it remains hidden in the
wardrobe, to be stealthily consulted. Unopened cylindrical calendars are being
used by children as mock swords. Some of the Parsi establishments which
published them have themselves disappeared. Only this publication reminds its
readers about the soon to be forgotten calendar by printing it in one of its
issues. A culture or civilization whose calendar is rarely consulted is being
badly ravaged by time.
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