:: Cyrus Broacha

Pamela or Samantha: Which one is greater?

Cyrus Broacha

When you look at the history of natural disasters of the world, along with earthquakes, typhoons and volcanoes, the Spice Girls are the terrible curse of diarrohea.

Every year, over three million people die from this terrible calamity, which means it ranks a little behind M&M, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears in its destructive potentiality or capability. Unfortunately, for this writer his own affliction (I’m his friend by the way) with three important landmarks, Independence Day, Elvis’ death anniversary and Parsee New Year. The latter is not to be confused with a new Parsee this year, which is also a big cause for celebration amongst the dwindling yet striking community.

In spite of the aforementioned affliction, the Olympic spirit (this combine with Parsee spirit and another more drinkable spirit) came to the fore.

Celebrations must go on whether everyone is cooperating or not. Here obviously by everyone the writer is referring to his intestine, which refused to answer any queries on the matter and kept his phone in the switch off mode.

Parsee New Year or as I like to refer to it, Tuesday, began with a pleasant exchange of gifts.

In our household the best gift we all cherish above everything else is information. So as a New Year present I informed my father that his wife was far away in Albany, New York and a Happy New Year to him. In turn, he unwrapped my information, which in turn, provided conclusive proof that my wife and kids were far away in Hyderabad and would not return till the next day.

Then we began, as we always do, with the great debates. In true Parsee style we argued was Beethovan greater than Mozart, Hobbs greater than Bradman, Gigli greater than Bjorling and most importantly, was Pamela Anderson greater than Samantha Fox. After this opening joust my father asked me if we should visit the fire temple. We sat down with a list of pros and cons on this vexing query: Pros were that it is New Year’s day, highly auspicious. Secondly if you only went once a year to the Agiary (fire temple) then today must be that day.

And thirdly, in the present world we live the world’s soul is in need of more prayers.

On the cons’ side we listed that there’s never any parking available at the fire temple. There was only one thing to do, clearly the cons outweighed the pros. Temple visit cancelled.

My dad then went about doing what he does best, playing the new Mexican tenor sensation loud enough for Parsees and Mexicans and especially, Mexican Parsees to hear.

This exercise has a similar effect as a fire — it clears the building.

In keeping with my own lofty intellectual pursuits, I put on Fashion Television with the volume off, in order to catch the extremely elusive lingerie

section.

This lingerie section, I must add. is the only time that real women models are featured, as compared to the 14-year-old boys with long hair and 20-inch

waist who parade the ramp for the rest of the time, disguised as women.

It was the perfect New Year spent in the absolute Broacha tradition with more space, less religion and plenty of food and music.

So to all the non-Parsees, this writer says (I’ve gone to being his friend) Saal Mubarak and may you in one of your future lifetimes be born a Parsee — perhaps in an age with a little more

parking.