14 DAY TRIAL // The Parsi community in Mumbai now wishes to provide vultures with two aviaries, which are to be built smack at the center of one of their most sacred sites.
Their goal is fairly simple to comprehend.
They want these scavengers to once again feed on their dead, as most of the people who are part and parcel of this community believe that, when compared to being buried and being cremated, being eaten by a vulture is the best, especially as far as environmental protection and public health are concerned.
Work on these two aviaries is to begin in April 2013, and it is expected that, by the year 2014, this centuries-old practice will be resurrected.
“Without the vultures, more and more Parsis are choosing to be cremated. I have to bring back the vultures so the system is working again, especially during the monsoon.”
“Most vulture aviaries have to spend huge sums to buy meat, but for us that's free because the vultures will be feeding on human bodies — on us,” Dinshaw Rus Mehta, chairman of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet told members of the press.