EXCEPT,  I DON’T quite feel like Alice in Wonderland. Absurd would be a more appropriate term to describe this recent development that requires the family of a deceased Zoroastrian (Parsi/Irani) woman married to a non-Zoroastrian to file an affidavit stating she was a practicing Zoroastrian all her life in order to receive funeral rites that are the default option and birthright of all Zoroastrian men, single, gay, purple, married to Martians or otherwise.

Apparently, the earlier procedure, an affidavit filed by the woman herself in her lifetime, is inadequate. And no one is asking why women have to prove non-”desertion” by an act of marriage while it is casually assumed that men are piously practicing holy men who have no reason to adopt the religion of their partner.

Oh, did I just call it absurd? How about we add demeaning, humiliating and sickeningly offensive? There are so many reasons I am proud to be a Parsi. This, let it go on record, IS NOT ONE OF THEM.  I must state here that this is a resolution passed by the BPP, a Bombay-specific body, and does not hold true for Zoroastrians elsewhere in the world (thank heavens!) Nations the world over are proof of how little progress is made when its women are treated like second-class citizens and it is heartbreaking to see an otherwise progressive community do this to more than half its populace, sometimes with the blessing of that ill-informed second-class gender.

For an older post and some history on the subject, go here.