family day in Taman Tumbina...

this picture was taken right after our treking in taman Tumbina...hihihihi

The Towers of Silence

This story is about a culture in Bombay(Malabar Hill).There is a stadium-like enclosure that the residents of Bombay know as dokhmas-the "towers of silence".It is the structure that the community of Parsis bring the bodies of their dead,exposing them to the air so that scavenger birds can pick the corpses clean.They only choose to bury only the bones of their dead-after the flesh has been stripped away in the towers of silence.The origin of this bizarre practice is ancient.
The Parsis are descendents of Persian.Like their Persian ancestor,they are Zoroastrians,followers of a myth-enshrouded religious prophet named Zoroaster.In Zorostrians tradition,exposure of the dead is additionally considered to be an individual's final act of charity,providing the birds with what would otherwise be destroyed.
In the past several decades,the population of birds of prey has declined by 99.9% due to diclofenac poisoning of the birds following the introduction of that drug for livestock in 1990.The remaining birds usually unable to fully consume the bodies.Parsi communites in india are currently evaluating captive breeding of vultures and the use of "solar concentrators"(which are essentially large mirrors)to accelerate decomposition.Some have been forced to resort to burial,as the solar collectors work only in clear weather.Vultures formerly disposed of a body in minutes,and no other method has proved fully effective.
Now both the tower ritual and the Parsi community itself seem to be on the decline as high-rise apartments go up around Malabar Hill.But Parsis now realize the shortcomings of the ancient method.The vultures still come,along with other birds,but for some unexplained reason scarcely touch the corpses these days.Many Parsis want the old custom changed.