Protest to Sarah MacDonald about "Holy Cow"
PLEASE HAVE RESPECT FOR THE DEAD
Sarah,
I am a member of the ancient Zarathushri Parsi community, and a proud follower of the Mazdayasni Zarathushtri religion which is one of the most ancient traditional religions in the world.
It has come to our attention that you have recently authored a book "Holy Cow" about a trip to India wherein you make certain distasteful statements such as Parsis needing "vultures to take them to heaven". You were invited to an inter-married person's flat in a skyscraper adjoining the Doongerwadi, this member being the inter-married Smita Crishna (nee GODREJ), who has started the (infamous) association of inter-marrieds.
You were shown the Dakhmas (Towers of silence) from above by the inter-married person, and you have written you could see the dead bodies of our Parsi people lying there, and also focussed your cameras on the same. You also joked distastefully in the book about the birds you saw around on the balconies that were not interested in eating the "Parsi lunch" below.
We must PROTEST strongly about this behaviour of your peering at, and poking fun at, the dead bodies of our Parsi people from this balcony. This is grotesque and inhuman behaviour and deepy offends our sensibilities. You should PLEASE HAVE SOME RESPECT FOR THE DEAD.
We have come to expect inhuman and religion-destroying behaviour from the inter-marrieds, who seem to become enemies of the religion they were born in after they commit the lineage-destroying sin of inter-marriage, but this behaviour of yours is sickening and utterly DISGUSTING and PASSES ALL BOUNDS OF HUMAN DECENCY.
My own father was consigned to the Dakhma and I feel sick at the thought that you and your crew, aided and abetted by the inter-married person, have looked at and poked fun at the dead bodies lying therein.
I ask you to consider this: how would you feel if someone dug up the grave of a dead family member and had a look inside the coffin, and then poked fun at the dead body therein? Would you not be offended at such an grotesque act?
Likewise, for you to look at, photograph and poke fun at the dead bodies of our Parsi people as "Parsi lunch" is DESECRACTION of our Parsi dead, and I would ask you to PUBLICLY APOLOGIZE TO THE PARSI ZARATHUSHTRI COMMUNITY IN INDIA AND ABROAD FOR YOUR DISTASTEFUL AND INHUMAN ACTIONS in poking fun at our religion and our customs and insulting our dead.
You have made several other errors in speaking on our religion in this book, for eg. you state that we Parsis copied the sacred thread from the Hindus. Such statements demonstrate your level of knowledge on our religion, since it is well known that in the Avestan scriptures, written thousands of years before the Parsis came to India, the sacred thread around the waist is clearly mentioned. There are several other errors in your book.
This letter is being cc'ed to the Traditional Zarathusthris Mailing list, which has more than 400 Zarathusthris from around the world, who honour their religion in the way their forefathers have done for centuries.
It will also be placed prominently on the internet on the Traditional Zoroastrianism Home page at http://www.ParsiZoroastrianism.com which is visted by tens of thousands of visitors from around the world.
Porus.
* Hormazd Dadari, ahriman marochinidari - Ardibehest Yasht Nirang.
* Dadar Hormazd is the Creator, the evil one the destroyer
* Fellow Mazdayasni Zarathushtris, please do not destroy your religion.
One of our Traditonal Zarathsuhtris, Pashmina wrote:
HOW DARE THEY HAVE A PEEK INSIDE OUR HOLY DAKHMAS......ask this Sarah Bimbo to open up a grave of one of her loved ones who has passed on and then make a joke of it.
All great cultures of the worlds are alive , BECAUSE THEY ARE DIFFERENT.....or else we would not have any documentaries on the Discovery Channel. If she can poke fun at a faith as respected and ancient as ours, she's nothing but a nit-wit, who knows not whether she's coming or going. Just wonder how much she knows about her own religion !!
But then, she must have just got so carried away by those stupid Kitty Parties that are hosted by the rich and infamous on their ill-gotten penthouse flats in a city called Mumbai.....that the Parsis poured their sweat and blood into once upon a time..... and if they are so disgusted by the sights from UP THERE....why dont they sell or better still just knock a couple of stories off.
THE DAKHMAS EXISTED LONG BEFORE THEY DID , AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO LONG AFTER THEIR ASHES ARE INTERRED AS INDUSTRIAL WASTE INTO MUMBAI SKIES.
Maybe Sarah should go and take a picture of a corpse burning in a crematorium, how the bodily fluids make the internal organs explode and how the faeces and everything is sent flying onto oven walls.....MAYBE she'll enjoy the smell of human proteins being baked and fried in the ovens ......or better still, she should go to other cities where thousands of cadavers half burned or otherwise are set afloat in a holy river .....and in that same river people of another religion take a dip to purify their bodies and soul.
Such is FAITH (which we respect)....then she may be justified in exclaiming HOLY COW! But then she wont dare do that for the other community will grill her....as would any other community if she dared poke fun at them.
So long diplomacy, but this Holy Cow thing is really sick.....Sarah whoever you are ....get your act together and your facts straight, and stop telling a really crooked story !
I wonder when her time comes....if she wouild enjoy someone opening up her coffin and exclaiming HOLY COW !
We respect all of God's religions which were rightly put here on earth....SO PLEASE HAVE THE DECENCY AND CLASS TO RESPECT OURS.....as for Madame Smita Godrej, one of our members should approach her to exchange her flat for theirs if the view from her flat is so disgusting to her. I am sure she would be hapy to oblige.....
- Pashmina.
Good hard-hitting reply Pashmina! Welcome back.
Shirin has explained who Smita is - the daughter of the family of Godrej (wonder why the Hindu name though). Also, she has unfortunately inter-married to a Hindu. She is one of the confused founders of the INfamous inter-married association.
Pick up the book "Holy Cow" in Dymocks bookstores and have a look. The other week I was just leafing through it to see if any reference was made to Parsis and I was astonished to see many pages mentioning Parsis, but disgusted with most of what Sarah has done. She seems to be a radio presenter with Abc so she should have kept her decorum.
Sarah says "The Parsis need vultures to take them to heaven" - a statement filled with mockery.
Sarah then goes with her crew to Smita's apartment and tries to peer down at the Parsi dead bodies, and makes a sick joke about the "Parsee Lunch" and the small birds not interested in the lunch.
Sarah then berates India as "this could only happen in India - open dead bodies in a big city!" and then says the Indians are overly tolerant, and the government is "bureaucratic" ie, suggesting that if the government was efficient (like maybe a western government) and not so tolerant, the dead open bodies wouldnt happen!
Sarah then goes with her crew to UDWADA and makes a cruel joke about the old Parsis who are walking to the fire temple, something like a "funeral procession". She cannot understand the deep faith in these people.
Sarah and her crew then try to ENTER the udwada fire temple but are stopped by at least 5 people, she writes. She is offended by this - as if she has a right to enter anywhere she pleases.
Sarah meets Meher Master Moos and then writes behind her back as "taking the cake" of all the mad people she has met.
Sarah also denigrates Mumbai as a "post-apocalyptic" city ie. similar to a city in the West but after a nuclear bomb had hit it. This after being a guest of Mumbai and being feted by rich people in Mumbai.
I was going to buy the book but I decided not to give any profit to such a person who had written such nasty things.
Regards,
Porus.