VERVEMAGAZINE.IN 93Can the way a park is conceptualised or a residential block is shaped create
happier citizens? One of the first planned settlements and the only ungated
Parsi baug in Mumbai, the Dadar Parsi Colony proves it can. Megha Shah
finds that its layout is a study in the effects of meticulous urban design on the
habits and dynamics of a communityI
n the 1890s, the bubonic plague or the Black
Death took many lives in Mumbai. It also gave
the city one of its most anomalous residential
precincts: the Dadar Parsi Colony.
To decongest the main city (now known as
South Mumbai) and to create hygienic living spaces,
the British government was forced to launch initiatives
that expanded the city’s limits to Dadar and Sion, tilting
it toward a fresh civic ideal. Although an overarching
framework for urban development never found fruition,
Mumbai’s first planned urban settlements in Dadar,
Matunga and Wadala were conceived, and at their
centre, the Dadar Parsi Colony (or DPC, as the residents
call it fondly) flourished into a collectivistic dream thanks
to the efforts of the visionary meliorist Mancherji Edulji
Joshi. He persuaded the authorities to set aside a 100 or
so plots for the middle-class Parsis and drew a blueprint
of a better place, detailed right down to the type of tree
to be planted here.
I stand before a marble bust of him — his moustache
forming a perfect triangle with his mouth — at one
of the many entrances to DPC on a Friday morning.
Behind me, there are environs of noise and disorder.
Discernible swirls of pollution choke man and animal at
the busy Dadar TT circle; but ahead lies the promise of a
satisfying self-organised urbanity. My earliest tryst with a
Parsi baug was while dropping two of my carpool mates
to their homes in Khareghat Colony on Hughes Road
after school. The permanently closed gates would only
be opened if one of them popped their heads out of the
window and were recognised by the watchman (even
though this was a daily ritual). It was the most beautifully
arranged patch of urban planning that I encountered in
the day — if only for a few seconds. Today, I plan to take
my time.
I walk towards the famed Five Gardens, and a
pleasing aura of pious intent rises from its placid
tree-lined streets that branch out in angular directions.
Dog walkers tug a dozen gambolling pooches, young men
ride around on scooters calling out to each other with an
affectionate string of cuss words, and teenagers armed
with HPY (Holiday Programme for Youth) badges — the
newest candidates for utopian optimism — courteously
approach passers-by to inform them of a blood drive
for residents. A row of Parsi-topi-wearing young boys,
barely a couple of feet tall — the next generation ofZoroastrian priests — hurry towards the local madressa,
the same one that rock icon and lead singer of Queen,
Freddie Mercury, attended while he was a resident.
The buildings with saucer-shaped balconies — some artdeco, others neoclassical, all unique — carry signs like
‘No Parking’ or ‘No Courier’.
Residents insist there’s a noticeable temperature
drop as you cross the invisible boundaries separating
the colony from the rest of the city. “This was, after all,
a jungle,” says Zareen Engineer, the granddaughter of
Joshi, an endlessly polite and poised 73-year-old with
coiffed hair and a pleasant smile. “Monkeys owned this
area.” We are sitting in her sprawling flat in a building
that can be visually divided into two halves; the first
few floors were built in an older architectural style
with vintage banisters and stairways, the top half thatPHOTOGRAPHS BY JOSHUA NAVALKAR