MUMBAI // In the cramped heart of the suburb called Andheri, the MF Cama Athornan Institute was strangely quiet. The institute, founded in 1923 to train Zoroastrian priests, is a large, M-shaped edifice with excellent infrastructure and teachers dedicated to the welfare of their students.
At present, those students number precisely four.
Classroom after classroom lay locked, their blank innards barely visible through smoked-glass windows. One room on the first floor, so big that even the softest voice echoed, used to be a dormitory holding as many as 50 beds; now it is occupied only by a clothesline strung across its breadth, bearing the laundry of its residents.
One leg of the M has been rented out as office space to an aviation academy. "Have you ever seen a school like this, where there are more teachers than students?" Dastur Firoze Kotwal said with a sigh. Mr Kotwal is a high priest and one of the religion's greatest scholars. He is also an alumnus of the Cama institute and a former principal there. "It is almost a dying seminary."
The state of the Cama Institute, Mr Kotwal said, mirrors the state of the priesthood in Indian Zoroastrianism. "For every 10 priests who pass away, there isn't even one to take their place," he said. "Nobody is entering the priesthood anymore."
Much of this shortage stems from the tension between secular and religious studies - between the choice, in front of a young man, of a private-sector job in India's booming economy and the relatively low-paying, unstable work of a priest.
The first mention of Zoroastrianism dates back to the 5th century BC, making it one of the world's oldest religions. The Indian Parsis are descendants of Persian Zoroastrians, who, forced into a minority by the advent of Islam, fled to south Asia, in particular, to India's west coast.
The Parsi community is still concentrated in the western state of Gujarat and in Mumbai. The last Indian census, in 2001, counted 69,601 Parsis in the country - a decline from the 1981 figure of 71,630, and from the 1951 figure of 111,791. A report by the National Commission for Minorities identified low birth rates and migration as causes for the steady drop in India's Parsi population.
Khushru Panthaky, the principal of the Cama Institute, one of the two Zoroastrian seminaries in Mumbai, called the Parsis a "microscopic minority". So while the number of students aspiring to the priesthood is dwindling in every religion, he said, "the problem is much graver in such a small community", because the death of the clergy will mean the death of the religion.
Until the late 1970s, the Cama Institute offered both secular and religious lessons, but its trustees began to observe seminary graduates drifting away from the priesthood and towards other professions. In reaction, they removed the secular component entirely - and watched, then, as the number of students dropped from nearly 50 into the single digits.
By the time secular studies were reinstituted, roughly a decade ago, it proved too late. The strength of the Cama Institute's student body has hovered in the low single digits ever since.
One former priest, who asked to remain anonymous, recalled the Cama Institute's redaction of secular studies as a major mistake. "Who'd want to be illiterate?" he said.
He insisted that he didn't regret abandoning his training for a job in the insurance industry.
"Would I have got 80,000 rupees [Dh6,400] a month, a car, a holiday home, medical benefits, and a 9-to-5 job as a priest? I wouldn't. Which is why I don't want my son to become a priest either, even though he's studied for it. 'Tell me you're not going to practice', I keep saying to him."
But at the other major Parsi seminary in Mumbai, the Dadar Athornan Institute, the principal, Ramiyar Karanjia, appeared optimistic. His school has 22 students, and its premises seemed distinctly livelier. Students' chants in Avestan - the ancient Zoroastrian language - filled the building as they pored over their lessons.
Mr Karanjia quickly offered other examples of priests who were, in the true hereditary tradition, initiating their sons into the profession. "It's true - priesthood may not be the first choice for these youngsters. There aren't any benefits, and it isn't a glamorous job," he said. "Until recently, in fact, young priests couldn't even eat out or go to the movies without exciting comment."
But Mr Karanjia cited a number of schemes initiated by the Athornan Mandal, a welfare body for priests, to supplement the priests' incomes. One adds 2,000 to 3,000 rupees a month to a young priest's salary while another offers a purse of 30,000 to 50,000 rupees to priests who complete 40 years of service.
"A full-fledged priest can earn 25,000 rupees a month," Mr Karanjia said. This is, no doubt, a sharp increase from earlier salaries in the clergy. But some priests point out that 25,000 rupees goes only so far in a city like Mumbai, and intelligent, well-educated young men can find jobs with salaries that could be 10 times higher.
The lack of qualified priests has begun to affect the quality of Parsi rituals, said Pirojshah Siddhwa, a teacher at the Cama Institute and a member of the Athornan Mandal's managing committee. "Sometimes we can't even find the full complement of 14 priests for a particular ceremony - priests who know every prayer by heart," he said. "So we often have to bring in priests who simply read out the prayers from a book."
Some Parsi temples, in fact, have started to ordain priests who have memorised only a couple of the requisite chapters, rather than the full 72, of the liturgical texts. This abridged course of study takes only a few months, as compared to the orthodox route of six to eight years.
Mr Karanjia suspected this was a bid by the temples to supplement their incomes: performing an initiation can bring in a fee of up to 50,000 rupees. Mr Panthaky, the Cama Institute principal, opposed such "read-only priests".
"Some of the higher-order rituals need both hands. How can a priest read and perform those rituals?"
Mr Siddhwa seemed resigned to this trend, as much as he said it disturbed him.
"Even reading the texts takes a certain expertise, and many of the people ordained this way can't read at that level," he said.
Then he smiled sadly through his snow-white beard and said that if a priest can read well, it may only be practical to use him. "Perhaps, at this stage, we can't help it."
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
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MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League quarter-final (first-leg score):
Juventus (1) v Ajax (1), Tuesday, 11pm UAE
Match will be shown on BeIN Sports
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Install an air filter in your home.
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TEACHERS' PAY - WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Pay varies significantly depending on the school, its rating and the curriculum. Here's a rough guide as of January 2021:
- top end schools tend to pay Dh16,000-17,000 a month - plus a monthly housing allowance of up to Dh6,000. These tend to be British curriculum schools rated 'outstanding' or 'very good', followed by American schools
- average salary across curriculums and skill levels is about Dh10,000, recruiters say
- it is becoming more common for schools to provide accommodation, sometimes in an apartment block with other teachers, rather than hand teachers a cash housing allowance
- some strong performing schools have cut back on salaries since the pandemic began, sometimes offering Dh16,000 including the housing allowance, which reflects the slump in rental costs, and sheer demand for jobs
- maths and science teachers are most in demand and some schools will pay up to Dh3,000 more than other teachers in recognition of their technical skills
- at the other end of the market, teachers in some Indian schools, where fees are lower and competition among applicants is intense, can be paid as low as Dh3,000 per month
- in Indian schools, it has also become common for teachers to share residential accommodation, living in a block with colleagues
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WHAT IS GRAPHENE?
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were experimenting with sticky tape and graphite, the material used as lead in pencils.
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The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl
Power: 153hp at 6,000rpm
Torque: 200Nm at 4,000rpm
Transmission: 6-speed auto
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The specs: 2018 Infiniti QX80
Price: base / as tested: Dh335,000
Engine: 5.6-litre V8
Gearbox: Seven-speed automatic
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The alternatives
• Founded in 2014, Telr is a payment aggregator and gateway with an office in Silicon Oasis. It’s e-commerce entry plan costs Dh349 monthly (plus VAT). QR codes direct customers to an online payment page and merchants can generate payments through messaging apps.
• Business Bay’s Pallapay claims 40,000-plus active merchants who can invoice customers and receive payment by card. Fees range from 1.99 per cent plus Dh1 per transaction depending on payment method and location, such as online or via UAE mobile.
• Tap started in May 2013 in Kuwait, allowing Middle East businesses to bill, accept, receive and make payments online “easier, faster and smoother” via goSell and goCollect. It supports more than 10,000 merchants. Monthly fees range from US$65-100, plus card charges of 2.75-3.75 per cent and Dh1.2 per sale.
• 2checkout’s “all-in-one payment gateway and merchant account” accepts payments in 200-plus markets for 2.4-3.9 per cent, plus a Dh1.2-Dh1.8 currency conversion charge. The US provider processes online shop and mobile transactions and has 17,000-plus active digital commerce users.
• PayPal is probably the best-known online goods payment method - usually used for eBay purchases - but can be used to receive funds, providing everyone’s signed up. Costs from 2.9 per cent plus Dh1.2 per transaction.