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 New Millennium Song
 “Zarathostis of the world, come! This new millenium greet,/Eyes fifed upon the future, standing firmly on our feet./Having crossed the seven seas, we now dwell in many lands,/Welcomed where’er we go, the jewel of friendship in our hands.
“Joyful and courageous, truthful one and all,/Generous, kind and gentle, ever ready to meet the call/For help from those who need it, but we seek no reward,/What more could we desire when Ahura Mazda is our Lord?
“Zarathostis of the world, now prepare to take a leap,/There’s so much to be done, there is no time to sleep./Spreading goodwill is not easy, ne’er was and cannot be,/It needs the sort of love embracing all humanity.
We may not have the numbers, we surely have the strength,/Victory will attend the pure-in-heart at length./Keep walking on the path of righteousness always,/May Ahura Mazda bless and keep us all throughout our days.”
The above original composition by poet Adi Kanga of Sydney, Australia, is said to have been prompted by a letter from Jehangir Medhora of Toronto, Canada (“New community anthem,” Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, May 2003) which Kanga says he chanced upon while browsing through the old issue in early 2004. Medhora, who had earlier created the Zoroastrian flag, had suggested that the familiar refrain Chhaiyé Hamé Zarathosti be recast in English to suit the language most commonly spoken by the community all over the world, and set to a new melody to avoid embarrassment to those living in the diaspora as the old tune belongs to the song, The Blue Bells of Scotland.
History as teacher
- Arnavaz S. Mama
Living the Zarathushtrian creed without undue stress is the goal of the president of the Zoroastrian Association of Victoria
“We have always remained low key. We like it that way!” says Perviz Dubash, president of the Zoroastrian Association of Victoria (ZAV). Voted in for his fourth term in office last July, Perviz and his wife Nergish, who functions as the ZAV’s honorary secretary, were in Bombay for a brief holiday when Parsiana had the occasion of meeting them. They speak lovingly of Melbourne, which began as an illegal settlement on the banks of the Yarra River in the sheltered cove of Port Phillip Bay and now thrives as the cultural capital of Australia, as “the second most livable city in the world — the first being Vancouver.”
Victoria, the southernmost and smallest state in Australia, was different when these stalwarts moved there 30 years ago, with, maybe, “about 35 Zoroastrian families in the area.” Today they estimate about 350 individuals comprising 137 families, 15 to 20 Zarathushti families being of Iranian extraction, according to Dubash, though the demographic profile prepared by ZAV vice president Arnavaz Chubb notes that about one-third of the population may be Iranian and that there may be at least 40 more individuals who maintain no contact.
The earliest Zarathushti to arrive in the area was Dossabhoy Cooverji Patell, “the great grandfather of one of our current Melbourne Zarathushtis,” writes Chubb. Stowing away from Aden to escape a hard life serving British soldiers in an Aden bar, he set sail for Australia without even informing his family. Discovered midway, he was made to scrub the decks in payment for his passage. Arriving in 1890, he set up as an ice cream vendor to miners in Broken Hill where he lived with his wife and two daughters, one of whom died at a young age and is buried there, writes Chubb. Dossabhoy is said to have left Australia in 1926, returning to Siganpore in Gujarat.
The Zarathushti migrants of the 1960s were professionals in the academic, legal and medical fields, writes Chubb. The current Zarathushti population covers a wider range of professions — accounting, administration, banking, engineering, the hospitality and information technology industries and insurance, as well as law and medicine. Some have even set up in business, as per Chubb’s account.
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