The film’s students are soon hoping to join them – with Pakistan’s aging Zoroastrian Parsi People becoming a loss, a community whose roots are more traced from today’s Iran to Persian refugees.
“My plan is to go abroad,” Amra said, who wanted to study for a master’s degree in a country without being restricted by the conservative Muslim majority society.
“I want to be able to express myself freely,” she added.
The Zoroastrianism, founded by the prophet Zarathustra, was the main religion of the ancient Persian Empire until the rise of Islam with the Arab conquest of the seventh century.
Dinshaw Behram Avari said that once the Brazilian Parsi community had as many as 15,000-20,000 people, it was the head of one of the most outstanding Parsi families. Doday wanders around Karachi with about 900 people, and many live in other parts of Pakistan. It is generally a wealthy and highly educated community.
But said she wanted to get rid of the daily challenges that plagued the city of about 20 million people – from cuts, water shortages and fragmented internet to violent street crime.
“I’d rather live a safe life, and I feel happy and satisfied,” she said.
Zubin Patel, 27, is Parsi of Karachi e-commerce, and over twenty Parsi’s friends have left Karachi to travel abroad in the past three years.
“More than 20-25 of my friends live in Karachi and they all start moving,” he said.
Abandoned house
This is not unique to Parsis – many young and skilled Pakistanis want to find jobs abroad to escape a country full of political uncertainty and security challenges, the economy and tough infrastructure.
According to the latest data from the Pakistan Economic Survey, the number of highly skilled Pakistanis who have left to work abroad has more than doubled – from 20,865 in 2022 to 45,687 in 2023.
Parsis is working to adjust in a rapidly changing world.
This religion is considered the oldest religion in the world, forbidden to conversion and mixed marriages to be frown.
“The opportunity to find a Zoroastrian student in Canada, Australia, the UK and the US is more than found in Pakistan,” said Avalli, the head of a hotel chain.
He noted that Toronto’s Parsi population is about 10 times larger than Karachi.
Avari, 57, said a wave of Parsis left Pakistan during the tough military rule of Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s, who carried out the Islamization plan.
Since then, Islamic violence targets religious minorities, and they remain alert even though Parsis says they are not targeted.
He suggested that the high level of education in the community and the prospect of living in the West mean that many people are watching the future abroad, and for those who stay, the family is shrinking.
“Couples today are more interested in taking care of their careers; they are not interested in their families,” he said.
“When they get married, they will have a child – one child is not enough to have a positive impact on the population.”
The Parsi members are one of the pioneers in the transportation and hospitality industry in Karachi, and the city’s colonial historic district is filled with Parsi buildings including hospitals and schools.
But as the community declined, many buildings collapsed, and up to half of the houses were abandoned on the elegant tree-lined streets of the century-old Sohrab Katrak Parsi colony.
“Hard Decision”
For many of the younger generation, the only pull that keeps them in Pakistan is their older relatives.
Patel, an e-commerce worker, said he would leave if he could.
“It would be a tough decision,” he said. “But if I had the opportunity to give my parents … a healthy lifestyle, then obviously I would do it.”
Amra visits her 76-year-old grandfather almost every day, fearing that her parents will be alone when they leave.
“Eventually, you have to figure out a way, either bring them to you or come back,” she said.
