A Navjote in New Zealand

Brilliant! a Navjote in New Zealand.

My Indian girlfriend emailed me that her grandson had had his Navjote in New Zealand where his parents live because his father couldn't get long enough time off work to travel to India. So IGF and her husband have gone to New Zealand until next July. IGF's son posted the photos of the Navjote on Facebook.

The photos I like best are where there are lots and lots of children and my IGF looks like a matriarch there, happy and proud. I looked at how she'd arranged her sari because I'd just been explaining saris at Toastmasters, so I wanted to know how she was wearing it.

Enjoy New Zealand - how nice to be able to stay for several months, and watch and be involved in her grandsons' every day life so that she gets to know them and they know her.

The Navjote

It's around 10.30 pm, and we've just got back from the Navjote - around 400 people at the Zorastian Hall.

We went in time for the ceremony, though we must have been the first non-Parsees to arrive. If you aren't a Parsi, then you can't go into the temple, but after the ceremony, they come out and the new Navjote (nav means new) repeats the prayers as the priest says them.

He arrived in a procession with his very proud parents and grandparents, garlanded in flowers, newly bathed as the ceremony requires, wrapped in red to be dressed in new garments.

We watched as the priest ran the thread round his waist several times. In future he will have to do this every time he washes. I thought the thread was of 27 threads, but Mr Gai tells me that it is 72 and the number represents 72 scriptures.

We had a lot of photo taking, and video taking, then a meal - a Parsi fish dish for the non-vegetarians.

Then there was music, with Khaizad's uncle Vispee on the drums and his cousin, Harmony singing. Watch out for the recordings I made - I'll put them on our home site. People started to dance, Khaizad with exhuberance and so I tried to photo him, but found myself on the patio dancing too. Next I looked up to find husband, not only dancing, but dancing with a red shawl wrapped round his head like a turban. Everyone was high with happiness, enthusiam and gaiety. Toddlers, teenagers, parents and grandparents danced.

Finally, the music ended, and people drifted off. Khaized put us in a rickshaw to make our own way back to the hotel.

India trip booked

We've booked to visit Ahmedabad in time for Zenobya's grandchild's navjote on 30th December this year. That's a parsi thread ceremony that happens when the child is around 7 to 12 years old. Her son, Kaizad, emailed about a year ago:

"see if u can make it to india in december next year, would be grt to have u with us on such an occasion."

It's 31 years since I was there with Vera McNamara - I wonder where she is now - I lost touch when Australia had its postal strike.

Husband and I will fly out to Ahmedabad 27th December, leaving the 'children' in charge of the house and each other. Son and daughter will have to get themselves back to uni in January as we shall still be away. After the ceremony, we are going to Kerala for a tour round Kochin, Munnar, Periyar and other places, staying in hotels, a cottage on a tea estate and a houseboat. I think it looks wonderful on this web page.

And I get ayuvedic massages, any massage pleases me, and husband will have the chance for massages too, and we get to see the wild life. (I could give the tigers a miss though - I'm quite happy to see them from a distance).

Our trip isn't quite the same because we are arranging our own transport (and a right hassle that has been - the JetAirways web site doesn't show you everything so we got down the wrong names on the tickets twice and had to cancel and rebook. And we couldn't book the internal flights on line, but only over the phone, but they don't take credit cards over the phone. It is cheaper to arrange your own flights but easier if you get an agent to take on the hassle.