94 JUNE - JULY 2019
was added later is more modern “and ugly” in design.
Zareen’s apartment is located in the original structure
and reflects the stylish sensibilities of the time: mosaic
tiles, clean lines and angels engraved into the walls and
ceilings. The living room, with a towering cabinet of knick-
knacks that tells the story of three generations’, leads
into a whitewashed balcony overlooking the gardens.
“Mancherji was a civil engineer who worked for the
BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) for 30
years. He noticed that people from other states were
migrating to Bombay (now Mumbai) and that Fort —
where all the Parsis used to live — was turning into a
business district with builders aggressively lobbying
for high-rises.” She sets down a tray with a bright
orange sharbat on it for me and continues, “He saw the
need to provide affordable housing for middle-class
Parsis and because he was reputed to be honest and
hardworking, he drew the attention of the people and
the authorities and won the community this land. But
he was not an influential man, he was middle class, he
wasn’t able to wall this community.” And so DPC remains
the only unwalled baug (meaning ‘garden’ in Persian)
among the few dozen gated communities that exist in
Mumbai, like Colaba’s Cusrow Baug, famous for its many
Bollywood shoots, and Jogeshwari’s Malcolm Baug,
known for its lawn-kissed cottages. “His rules were that
no building could be more than two storeys high and
that there should be 15 feet of open space around everybuilding. And even before a single one was constructed,
he lined the streets with trees, each street with only
one kind. So, Jame Jamshed Road has Ashoka trees
and Firdausi Road has mahogany, and spring or autumn
comes at the same time to each road, carpeting the floor
with flowers or leaves of the same colour.” Nature too
must follow order here.
“Once he built the colony, there were ‘For Sale’
signboards on the buildings for years, but nobody
wanted to come to Dadar, because it was perceived as
being too far. I remember most of my mummy’s friends
lived in Fort, and they used to go for dinner there.
When my parents would invite them for dinner over
here on a Sunday, the reaction was: ‘Oh my god, all the
way there, who’s going to come?!’” But come they did
— 10,000 Parsis at last count — making DPC the largest
Zoroastrian enclave in the world.
I hit the bylanes again, visiting some of the places that
Kaevan Umrigar — a resident who conducts guided walks
for outsiders through Khaki Tours — told me about over
the phone. I walk past Ready Money building, named
after the proprietors, the Readymoney family, who
developed deep pockets selling opium and were ready
sources of money for the British whenever they needed
it (it’s not uncommon to find Parsi surnames based on
livelihoods or circumstances; another family, the Petits,
according to legend, got their moniker because of a short
gentleman working as a French translator, who was often
called petit — or ‘small’ in French). The large compound of
that charitable building complex was once a tennis court
but is now used as a parking lot for rows and rows of
the residents’ cars — often the most prized possessions
of a Parsi.
I walk past the community hall which, due to a lack of
funds, is being let out to the Maharashtrian community
residing nearby for events. Ironically, pictures of
the donors, some of the staunchest Zoroastrians in
history, continue to frame the walls watching over the
Maharashtrian wedding ceremonies that regularly
take place within them. Next, I enter the local library
that boasts 10,000 books in English and Gujarati,
but a curmudgeon finds some joy in shooing me off
the premises on account of my not being Parsi. As
the photographer accompanying me clicks away,
a septuagenarian woman in a nightgown totters to the
window of a building nearby and bellows, “Why don’t
you take pictures of those bloody walkers with dogs who
don’t carry the scoops instead.” Before disappearing into
her living room, she mutters, “Poop, poop everywhere.”
But there’s no poop to be found. There’s hardly any litter
or dust or potholes even.
“We have very strong relations with the municipal
corporation, and we’re even on WhatsApp with them,”
says Kayomi Engineer, Zareen’s daughter-in-law and
founder of the Instagram page @dadarparsicolony, which
documents spots of beauty within the area. “Because
they know, ‘Hum kachra nahi uthayega toh ek Parsi phone
karega, phir doosra Parsi phone karega. Te phone karat