Save the Parsi

With my arithmetic stuck between the digits of my ten fingers, I cannot risk a comment on Ms Heptulla's very advanced calculation that the Muslims, at 13-point-some percent are not a minority. Attractive, clever and convenient as the idea is, I will let that pass.

What really won my heart was her concern for what she considers the real minority -- the Parsis. We must, she said, make sure that their numbers do not diminish any further.

I am completely with the honourable Minister in this, her concern for the Parsis. With her I would hang my abacus upon the willow and weep if that disaster happened. Like Abou Ben Adhem, may their tribe increase, I pray.

What I am anxious to see in the near future is what steps the Minister plans to take to increase their numbers. I am sure she will consider all measures -- political, social, anthropological, legal, scientific, technological...whatever. Not easy, this reversal of the diminishing trend. Since Parsis are not allowed to marry non-Parsis (as a result of their promise never to convert) the problem is compounded. The progeny of a formal alliance of a Parsi with a non-Parsi is not considered Parsi. So every mixed marriage is anathema to the Parsi Book of Numbers. The mind races to all obvious possibilities: fertility departments in Parsi General Hospitals, a reduction in the marriage age for Parsis, exclusive Parsi sperm banks and a total ban on birth control and mixed marriages. Other more titillating and mischievous routes have been suggested; but of course, Ms. Heptullah will think of more and better solutions to this problem, surely.

            Oh how I love the Parsi. Right from school and college days, right up to my years in advertising, I have held the Taraporewalas, Dinshaws, Mistrys and all those affectionately called bawas close to my ventricles. Their Hindustani abuses, cutely yodelled, their readiness to laugh at themselves, their total lack of guile and the luminescent Parsi-peg they so readily offer to quench a little thirst I found endearing indeed.

Oh, yes, Ms. Heptulla. Save the Parsi, please.

            I have suffered a great loss in moving out of Mumbai in that I am not able to accept those invitations to an agiary for weddings and navjots. I am sure I am not alone in my partiality to this social treat. Who will not remember those occasions, when ears perked up for that call, “Jamwa chaalo” you made a dash for the gormandising arena only to find yourself in the third row, having being beaten by smarter legs than your own? And as you stood, gushing saliva onto your starched dress-shirt, you watched the cruelly teasing passage of chicken farcha, patranu maachi, Sali boti, dhansaak and the entire lagan nu bonu before your now half-glazed eyes. And when you sat down to the feast, your belt slyly loosened by two spaces at least, your Grace Before and After Meals, discreetly belched would be a silent “God save the Parsi.” Foreshadowing the sentiments of our gracious Minister.

            But dismiss me and my personal biases as so much hogwash. Who among us Indians has not sipped of that legendary glass of milk sweetened at Sanjan so many centuries ago? You may take for granted the industrial, commercial and economic sweetening of India by the likes of the Tatas and the Godrejes or the global flourish of aapro Zubin’s baton. You may invoke the memory of names like Dadabhai Naoroji, JRD and Homi Bhabha down to a more recent Russi Mody or your very own baug friend, Pesu. I ask you to think back to the nicest, liveliest, the most gracious, most talented and jocular people you have known. I can bet you a Parsi peg that if you have lived in Mumbai, most of them on your list would be bawas. Real “darrrlings”, as they call everyone else.

            Think about it. Where could you turn for migraine relief after that verbal chappal-throwing on a Goswami show if not to Bawa Cyrus Broacha’s mad Week that Wasn’t?

            How else would you take away the bad taste in your mouth left by all that biased, sensationalist and depressing reportage except by snacking on Bachchi’s kurkure columns?

            And who will interpret the law for us common folk without all that thorny legalese and with that honest Parsi intent we have come to trust but our familiar Soli Sorabjee?

Come to think of it, we have to say a quiet thank you too to my good Parsi friend on India’s Madison Avenue, Sam Balsara for helping to put a shine on our new Prime Minister. Oh yes, Minister, you need to save the Parsi.

In all this, we can be sure, under the promised certainties of the new regime, that in naming the Parsis, the honourable Minister is not displaying any favouritism merely because of all the endearing qualities of this minority that I have incompletely enumerated. In time, we can expect other small enough social groups to be included in this programme of national salvation. One might well include the Jarawas of the Andamans, who despite their poisoned arrows and robust penile displays could be worthy candidates for saving and for inclusion in our list of minorities. And then, maybe, she would know of some more. Like the Jews perhaps, who may come in handy in case of a needed Entebbe type operation in the future?

Others, such as the Christians, who count themselves as blessed minorities had better read the new arithmetic on the wall. Their percentages may look small but their numbers are a little too large for comfort. They account for a measly 2%. But in terms of numbers, you may find more practising Christians in India than in all of Europe. So there, you have it. By the same logic, not a minority. To qualify for minority status worthy of demographic salvation, you better dwindle down to a size where you cannot be any trouble. Like the Parsis. Or the Jews. Or the Jarawas.

In the mean time, the Parsis would do well to seize the moment. An opportunity of many lifetimes. The State that welcomed them to India way back in 1599 in Sanjan is now the model for the country’s governance and even the language that they speak (minus their own sweet musical grace notes) may well be on its way to becoming the lingua franca after the Messianic dawn of May 16, 2014.