‘Bhagwaan Ke Pakwaan’ — A Window Into The Relationship Of Food & Faith In India

SOUL FOOD

Ervad Marzban Hathiram played host to us during Navroze, or the Parsi New Year. ‘Ervad’ is the title bestowed to a minor Zoroastrian priest, so this man was very much orthodox in faith, but a liberal at heart who gladly opened his doors to us and gave us a crash course in the esoteric and mystic Ilm-e-Khshnoom school of Zoroastrianism.

A twenty-seventh generation Parsi—with tapestry proudly hanging on his home walls to prove it—he moved here after life as a financial controller to practice his faith. Despite his sacrifice and devotion, he is still seen as an outsider by some in the community. Yet, he soldiers on.

His specialization: the Zoroastrian death ceremonies conducted in four parts—Baj, Afringan, Farokshi and, lastly, Stum in which food is an integral part of the process. However, it is not offered to any god or fire as you might assume. Instead, it is offered to the soul of person who has passed.

To explain this, Marzban made savvy use of his accounting background coupled with ideas from Ilm-e-Khshnoom. Roughly 3500 years ago, the prophet Zarathustra was enlightened with the monotheistic idea of God, or Ahura Mazda (‘Ahura’ meaning ‘Lord of Life’ and ‘Mazda’, ‘Omniscient’). This ideology laid the basis for Zoroastrianism where the entire cosmos comes into play.

Ahura Mazda is in a zone where time and space are one. The Amesha Spirits—manifestations of Ahura Mazda’s nature—are spread through this celestial medium as the cosmos, stars, sun and fire. Our souls began with Ahura Mazda as one, Ruvan. It is said that an imperfection was found within that soul, and thus the entire the universe—known and unknown—was created by breaking these souls into smaller fragments to find and purify the imperfection. The stars, suns, humans, animals, plants and rocks are those fragments—in each is Ruvan, a very, very small fraction.

And now, these souls are on the journey back to salvation, back to purity, back to being one with Ahura Mazda. But this salvation cannot be attained through one soul. These fragments must reach salvation together, and upon our death, the soul is reawakened to be judged by its humata, hukhta, hvarshta. (No, not Hakuna matata, although that did become the unofficial soundtrack for the trip.) Humata, hukhta, hvarshta is one of the first Zoroastrian tenets a child is instilled with: good thoughts, good words and good deeds. Simply put, good thoughts without any action isn’t enough. It’s the culmination of the three in our lifetime that is our golden ticket to God.

What exactly is good? Well that’s for Ahura Mazda to decide.

Think of it as a karmic accounts ledger. Chances are most of us are going to be seeing more debits than credits when we expire. Our souls are going to need quite the cleanse. The shock of those red accounts coupled with the attempt to purify them leaves the souls tired.

That’s where Marzban steps in.

Ingredients such as wheat, rose, sandalwood, copper and milk are further along the cycle to salvation, and therefore have a better resonance with our souls compared to dead matter (or durian, which totally makes sense). Adhering to these specific ingredients and strict procedures, he cooks food to fuel these souls.

And, our morbid take, to welcome them back to humanity.

THE FIRE OF LIFE

A couple of days into our Udvada stay, we’d started to get a hold on the basics of Zoroastrianism, but one burning question remained: What’s the importance of fire? And why can’t we go see it?

(Sorry, two questions.)

So we knocked on Marzban’s door once more.

The sun, stars, and general cosmos are all extensions of Ahura Mazda, bestowing blessings upon humanity and aiding us on the path to salvation. And among them is the son of Ahura Mazda, Asha, or the Eternal Truth—manifested physically as fire. Just as fire physically purifies food, releases nutrition and transfers energy, it also purifies the mind and spirit, releases the true inner self, and creates a connection between Ahura Mazda and us.

But talking about it didn’t satiate our curiosity and since we weren’t allowed to visit the temple itself, he took us directly to the source: a sandalwood ‘factory’.

I say ‘factory’ (imagine the air quotes) because, like most Indian companies, it had one mid-level manager whose job it was to boss people around and two workers who did all the manual labor: trimming the logs and setting them to bask in the sun where they hardened and turned red. The men’s payment, aside from monetary, was a stipend of alcohol to help with their joint pain. But man, did one of them have a superb smile.

The majority of sandalwood logs, the kind used to fuel the fire of Iran Shah, come from Mysore—a lucrative supply chain given the high price of sandalwood. Before its price skyrocketed, whenever someone came to the fire to make a wish, they would offer sandalwood equal to their own weight, but now these scales have become more of a tourist attraction.

The reason for these strict doctrines is due to the magnitude of the fire that rests inside Iran Shah. In Zoroastrianism, there exist three grades of fire varying in source, purification power and purpose. The fire in Iran Shah is Atash Behram, the highest grade, born of sixteen fires. These sixteen are collected from in and around the community: the oven of the baker, the forge of the smith, the fire of death, and even lightning.

The fire of lightning is probably not easy to source – but leaving this to its respective legend – the collection is just the start of this process followed by quite a robust purification ceremony. And, that in itself is a good enough reason to keep clumsy folk like us out—let alone the anxiety that we would face ourselves being inside.

From the earliest of nomads, fire has been the centre of the tribe. Warmth, light, protection—all very important, but even more significantly, fire allowed us to consume foods that we couldn’t before, by destroying bacteria and unlocking nutritional value. Cooking was the first major advancement of the culinary world, and fire the reason behind the evolution of nomadic tribes into expansive civilizations.