A recent clash between the Bombay Parsi Punchayet and Class IV workers of the community’s Tower of Silence or Doongerwadi translated, “garden on the hill,” this is the final resting place of the city’s Zoroastrians over a wage hike is threatening an ethnic ritual of disposing the dead that the group has followed for centuries. The protesting workers include khandias or pallbearers, who carry the body to its final destination for exposure of the dead, particularly to scavenging birds for the purposes of excarnation at the 85-year-old dokhma or Tower of Silence. These 18 khandias must be Zoroastrian which, given the macabre nature of their work, makes them even harder to replace.

On Fravardin roj and Fravardin mahino of the Zoroastrian calendar, a day dedicated to the memory of fravashis guardian spirits of departed souls, Parsis visit the Towers of Silence to remember them; Bombay 1984. PIC COURTESY/The Zoroastrians of India Parsis, A photographic journey by Sooni Taraporevala, published in 2000