Silent is the land : Silence is the tower

Today was my first trip to the Bombay Doongerwadi i.e. the Tower of silence. Zoroastrians do not cremate their bodies as they worship fire and believe that even after death they should donate their bodies. Yes, we are the benovalent creatures who consider themselves as pure as white snow (a lot more things that can equal pure, but I shall leave some work for your grey cells).
Spread across 70 acres, Doongerwadi is till date the Bombay Parsi Panchayet's (BPP) largest golden egg. And they seem in no hurry to give it away. The class divide is most prominent in the allocation of bunglis (house of rest for the bodies). The poor section of the community are given bumglis in the lower part of the doongerwadi where as the upper middle class who can afford to pay Rs 900 are given the Wadia bunglis. These are situated near the prayer hall

If one thought that the caste factor would be missing in the small community consisting of 69,790 Zoroastrians (India Census 2001), they are sadly msitaken. The Nasasalars or the Nascisar Khandia's(meaning people who carry bodies on their shoulders) are the body bearers of the community. Dressed in white flowy gown like robes, they carry the dead bodies all the way from the bungli's upto the Tower of Silence. This is a 2km walk up a steep slope and requires a lot of energy. Their work does not stop with carrying the body up with a stream of people walking behind them. But they also have to take the body inside the Tower of Silence and walk amongst the other bodies to find an empty slot to place the new body. They also clean the interiors of the tower ocassionally. Clearning up bones and left-over body parts makes these people impure. Hence there are considered the untouchables of the community.

They are not invited to the houses of chust (pure) Zarthusthi's. They find no one from the community who would want to marry them. They are left with no choice to marry the poorest of the poor, the pit of the pile.

They are the outcasts, the outlaws. They are who we made them. We didn't find the courage to pick up our remains after dead and so left them to do it. Those remains which are ironically donated after death.