Delhi’s Parsis head to the Yamuna. In Mumbai, it’s Apollo Bunder, Dadar and Girgaum Chowpatty. On one day every year (March 14 this year), Parsi Zoroastrians in India pay their respects to water to celebrate Ava mahino (month) and Ava roj (day). They consider water as one of the key elements of the universe to preserve, with Ava Yazata, the guardian angel lending them a hand. At the core of the faith sits respect and protection of natural elements. This reverence to water is also starkly evident in the myth of Pir-e-Chak Chak, dating back to Sassanian times. The mountain shrine (pir) in Chak Chak near the city of Ardakan in Iran, is a pilgrimage spot. It’s here that Sassanian ruler Yazdegard III’s daughter Nikbanou was ambushed by Arab invaders. She prayed to Ahura Mazda, Zoroastrianism’s creator deity, and the mountain opened up, sheltering her in its orifice. Mountain Chak Chak (named after the constant sound of water hitting stone) has a perennial spring which legend says was fed from the tears of the mountain in Nikbanou’s remembrance.