TOWER OF SILENCE

TOWER OF SILENCE

As a Master Trainer in Human Resources, I always put MCQ questions to my participants about the various ecological and geographical sites of Pakistan and my favorite question is “Where is the TOWER OF SILENCE located in Pakistan”?

It was the morning of 14^th December 2016, at 9.00 am, I was waiting at the entry gate to the PARSI Colony located near KALA PULL (Black Bridge) in Mehmoodabad Karachi and waited for my escort to take me inside for a guided tour of the PARSI Colony Karachi.

The PARSI’s are a very close knit secluded community who pride themselves in their religious norms, customs and traditions which they have practiced for times immemorial.

Hence the entry into the closely guarded walled PARSI colony is restricted and you can only enter if you have some PARSI friend escorting you and in this case it was one of my old Army contacts who arrived on time and took me inside the colony.

My objective today was to see the Tower of Silence in the PARSI Colony which had always intrigued me and was like an obsession for me to visit and write about this secluded, mysterious, cryptic, esoteric forbidden area. 

My escort took me up to the funeral pier and told me that beyond this point even he cannot go as the ritual precinct can only be entered by a special class of pallbearers, called nusessalars, a contraction of nasa.salar, caretaker (-salar) of potential pollutants (nasa-).

A TOWER OF SILENCE is a circular, raised structure built by PARSI’s (Zoroastrians) for excarnation – that is, for dead bodies to be exposed to carrion birds.

Carrion birds are large, carnivorous, scavenger birds, species include buzzards, rocs, condors, vultures, and swoops. They usually have featherless heads and broad, slow-flapping wingspans. 

The Zoroastrians faith and rationale is that the earth and fire are considered sacred and should not be exposed to contamination. Zoroastrian tradition considers a dead body (in addition to cut hair and nail parings) to be nasu, unclean, i.e. potential pollutants.

One of the earliest literary descriptions of such a building appears in the late 9th-century Epistles of Manushchihr, where the technical term is astodan, "ossuary".  Ossuary a container or room in which the bones of dead people are placed. Another term used is dokhmag, for any place for the dead. 

In the Indo Pak sub continent the first tower of silence was built in Doongerwadi Mumbai and hence bears the same name as it was constructed on a hill of that name.

The modern-day towers, which are fairly uniform in their construction, have an almost flat roof, with the perimeter being slightly higher than the center so that the remains slide down easily.

The roof is divided into three concentric rings: the bodies of men are arranged around the outer ring, women in the second circle, and children in the innermost ring. 

The bodies are then left for the Vultures to dispose off and no other method has proved fully effective.

Once the bones have been bleached by the sun and wind, which can take as long as a year, they are collected in an ossuary pit at the center of the tower, where – assisted by lime – they gradually disintegrate, and the remaining material – with run-off rainwater or the underlying sea takes care of the rest.  

If you look at the old map of Karachi the sea had access right up to Mahmoodabad, Baradari, and Abdullah Shah Ghazi Mazaar, but later on with the passage of time the sea receded leaving behind the sandy beaches of Clifton and sea view.

As I was taking photographs of the tower I could not help noticing that there were no carrion birds in the vicinity and only a few stray eagles  and kites perched themselves above the Tower walls.

The reasons for this is  the population of birds of prey in the Indian subcontinent has declined nearly 100% due to DICLOFENAC poisoning of the birds following the introduction of that drug for livestock in the 1990. 

The few surviving birds are often unable to fully consume the bodies. PARSI communities in India are currently evaluating captive breeding of vultures and the use of "solar concentrators" to accelerate decomposition. Some have been forced to resort to burial, as the solar collectors work only in clear weather. 

The PARSI community in Pakistan are concentrated mostly in the city of Karachi and have made quite a remarkable impact on the metropolis, but the size of the always small PARSI community in Karachi is on the decline.

 

The major reason for the declining population of PARSI’s in Karachi is migration to Western countries.

There are about 1200 to 1300 PARSI’S in Pakistan according to a local census done privately and the attrition rate is further declining due to the senility of the PARSI population and low reproductive rate just like the drop in the ocean of a city.

In recent years, the PARSI’s motivation to leave Pakistan has been compounded by the extremely volatile political and security conditions, a sentiment reflected among both the young and old in the community.

The contribution of the PARSI’s in charitable, philanthropic and altruistic activities like, school, dispensaries, play grounds, hospitals and welfare centres without discrimination of religion has to be applauded and placed on record.

 

PARSI’s are sometimes referred to as "fire-worshippers" because of the central role that fire plays in their rituals. Their temples each have a consecrated fire that burns eternally and some of the fires have been kept alive for centuries.

The priests Nawar wear masks covering their mouths and noses so that the fire is not desecrated by their breath or saliva.

More than half the PARSI population in Karachi now is over fifty years old. The local clergy MOBED also called DASTURJI is aging, without anyone to replace them.

It is very difficult to get hold of trained Nawar as they are schooled in India, and are in no mood to move to Pakistan "for all the money in the world."

"At our fire temple, we have three priests. Two of them are more than 80 years old," says Shahveer Byramji, Zane Byramji's uncle and a managing trustee of one of the two fire temples in the city.

 
I stood at the funeral pier and glanced around I was wonder stuck with many tablets, plaques and inscriptions which were written on the structures around the tower of silence and notable of them was UNEQUAL IN LIFE, ALL LIE EQUAL IN DEATH.

But there was more written on that marble slab, in letters accentuated with black ink: NO SPECIAL PLACE FOR ANYONE. NO MINE, NO THINE, NO HIS, NO HERS, ALL INSEPARABLE AND INDISTINGUISHABLE, SLEEP SIDE BY SIDE, PARTNERS AND EQUALS.

It is the perception belief and interpretation of one’s religious norms which separates us from one another where as GOD created all human beings equal to one another. 

As I made my way back to the entrance I ruminated deeply that no religion of the world promotes violence but teaches us to live in peace, harmony and to love our fellow human beings.

I hope my message of religious harmony spreads to all corners of the world.   

Dr. Babur Zahiruddin