July 2009
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The ghosts of Doongerwadi:
Among Bombay's dwindling Parsis
Sherally Munshi is a writer living in New York City.
I have never been to a Parsi funeral. I almost went once, when I was about fifteen. A thick-haired man in his early thirties, a family acquaintance and recent arrival from Bombay, died suddenly of a heart attack. I had met him a few weeks earlier, poolside, at one of the Parsi gatherings I dutifully attended almost every week growing up in Miami. As others stood around eating noisily, darkening their clothes with sweat, the young man excused himself, stripped to his bathing suit, and, from the diving board, sprang into the air and slid into the water.
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| SEE ALSO: Bombay; Bombay (India); Mirza, Dasturji Framroze; Baria, Dhun; Funeral customs and rites; Funeral rites and ceremonies; Mistree, Khojeste; Knowledge—Dokhmas; Parsees; Vultures; Zoroastrianism | ||||||||
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