passed away a few years ago, each time you hear his great voice, you feel his presence in the room. While his son Ervad Bahadur Nalladaru does occasionally attend the prayer, he has not assumed his father’s mantle as a full time role as yet. Instead, he humbly stands by the podium that the senior Nalladaru once graced.

When the session is at an end, I pay my respects to the holy atash and leave feeling religiously uplifted but yet a little let down. Let me tell you why.

For many years now, our community’s lack of respect for and consideration toward our mobeds has disappointed me immensely. Every time we visit an agiary, we have been taught to leave a small token amount for our priests and yes, each of us does, but with how much forethought and consideration? An individual is entitled to leave a sum s/he considers sufficient, which is undoubtedly relative from person to person and to one’s economic stature and earnings. Some of us tend to live way beyond our means, others keep well within them. However, where we all fail miserably is in giving back to our spiritual guides.

This is solely my personal opinion, but it is deplorable when I see well-to-do Parsis leave a few paltry coins for our mobeds as a donation and then behave like they are doing the Agiary a favour. This is not done! We spend lavishly on meals, drinks, clothes and cars, but how easily we forget the importance of supporting those who stand day after day, all their lives, fanning our holy flame in the name of the Zoroastrian religion.

Today there is a shortage of mobeds in our country and it’s no mystery why. No matter how spiritual-minded or inclined one is, one cannot survive, much less start a family life, solely reliant on mobedy. This is the reality of the situation.

Parsis don’t believe in pandits or gurus who demand large donations to keep bad fortunes at bay. Nor are we coerced into giving a percentage of our incomes to religious leaders. We are a broad-minded community and have the freedom to donate whatever we like, to whomsoever we like. At our agiaries we spend without constraint on sukhar, kathiya and divas, but when it comes to leaving a donation for our mobeds, we reach for coins and notes of the smallest denominations.
A first step in the right direction is to stop thinking of this as charity. What we leave our priests is a gesture of gratitude for doing what they do — praying for our community. And no, my friends, a ten rupee note is not nearly thanks enough!

The BPP’s mobed scheme was a novel idea, which did see the light of day. Due to the recent financial crunch, however, all additional donations to our mobeds have ceased. While the arrangement was pleasing in principle, I fail to see why our clergy were made to depend on a drive of this kind from the BPP. Is it not our individual and collective responsibility to ensure that they live a life as comfortable as ours? Are they not entitled to a sufficient livelihood?

And so I urge you, please let’s not neglect our mobeds. They are far too critical to our survival, to the survival of our sacred traditions. The most positive vibrations we receive are from our prayers, and we learn how to pray from them. Every one of us has experienced the thrill that comes from hearing the recital of our prayers echoing powerfully within the walls of our Agiaries, that hair-raising sense of pride associated with our religion, the oldest mankind has ever known.

So I say to you, give. Please give. And give from the heart. For more important than the act of giving, is the very desire to do so.