In my last post I spoke about Kaevan Umrigar’s research links for his films. He has kindly sent me the link where we can view his 5 Parsi films and here it is:
http://www.geocities.com/naveak99/films.html
The films are definitely worth seeing, especially if you are a Parsi reading this, you must see them. We as a community are blind to many aspects of ourselves. The film ‘Invisible Parsis – Poor of a Prosperous Community’ documents the life of poor Parsis, a category that most of us think doesn’t exist. It is the story of their struggle, how some Parsis were left behind, even in an ‘advanced’ community. The aspect of Parsis who work for meagre pay in the agiaries, or towers of silence is also well brought out. In this day and age of six-figure pay packets and swanky corporate jobs, there are Parsis struggling to make ends meet. I’m sure there are lots of Parsis out there, who will decry this film saying that ‘look at how far we have come, see our Tatas and Godrejs’. And while I agree that these are achievements we are all proud of, it does not justify us shutting our eyes to other issues, or the negative side of our community.
Another one of these issues is covered in the film ‘Parsi Wada, Tarapore – present day’. There are several small towns and villages in India, especially in Maharashtra and Gujarat, where the Parsi population has dwindled drastically in the last few decades. The sprawling homes, the rusted iron gates, the towers of silence, the zoroastrian library, have all been left to spiders, dust, and in some cases the shiv sena. It bears the depressing look of a place and culture that has vanished, that is dead, that has been swallowed by the forces around it that proved too strong for it too withstand. They are left covered with grafitti and plants and dirt. Very soon, these places are going to pass out of living memory of the Parsis. People are going to look upon the the Parsi homes there as today we look upon the remains of the Indus Valley civilisation, or other dead cultures. The best part of this film is that it has no dialogues, as the images are strong enough to be a wake-up call, and the director has used sound very effectively.
The other films deal with the issues of inter-caste marriage, looking after old family members, and the loneliness of old Parsis.
“We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.” - R. D. Laing
