Archive

In Iran, it was called mahalleh, which not surprisingly became mohalla in Arabic, meaning to settle or occupy. In Navsari, it was synonymous with Vad (or Vaar in Parsi dialect). Individual homes seamlessly merged into the collective identity of the moholla. Like twins conjoined at the waist, houses in a Navsari moholla, even though constructed at different points of time, mostly had a common wall with the neighboring house. Stand-alone meant you were super rich, and your house was then termed a bungalow.
The moholla ensured transparency. Privacy was an alien concept. Unless there was enmity, Goolamai walked merrily into Jaijimai’s kitchen to borrow sugar, and walked out unnoticed. Doors always remained open during the daytime and there were no doorbells. The moholla was a joint family in spirit. In an era of no savings and no insurance, if a father died young, the moholla ensured that at least the children did not starve. Schooling was virtually free; and there was little else to spend on. The moholla meant social security, insurance and emotional support, all rolled into one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If Dhunmai perished in Dosabhai’s house, water for her last ablutions was drawn from the well shared in common with Burjorji’s house, whose members also observed the mandatory post-death three days of vegetarianism, and after the paachli raat nu uthamnu shared the dhansak nu botu (mutton chunks in thick lentils) with Dosabhai’s bereaved family. Navsari never prepared dhansak for an auspicious occasion which was celebrated with mori daar (non-spicy lentils) accompanied by a delectable pomfret patio (fish in a thick, spicy gravy); prawns were then fairly unknown entities.
A stolid black telephone was a status symbol till the ’70s. The owner permitted the residents of the moholla to make urgent trunk calls, provided they deposited cash on the table. There was little opportunity to eavesdrop since most trunk calls related to death or sickness. Gossip was exchanged via five naya paise stamped postcards (if Soonamai gave a cup of tea to the postman, he would permit her to read everyone’s postcards in the moholla). The really confidential stuff was communicated in ‘inland letters,’ at double the cost. These were not pre-glued and were often sealed with saliva, rice paste or gum (Soonamai was sorely disappointed with these letters which gravely infringed on her right to know what was transpiring in Shirinbai’s son’s life in Bombay).
In the evenings, elderly ladies stood on their patio or portico or near the front door, and exchanged views on the world, across the moholla, as reported by the Jam-e-Jamshed daily delivered just before lunch. Or they would predict the outcome of Parsi novels being serialized in the weekly Kaiser-e-Hind [kaun jaané kahré Dina né Soli né kéhvaani himmat aavshé (who knows when Dina will work up the courage to tell Soli)!]. While there were no kitty parties, the ladies played Bezique, a card game from France, introduced by those returning from Aden after the Second World War after serving as priests in the agiary there. They also brought with them African grey cockatoos called kaskoo who had an amazing ability to mimic the human voice; one of them ruled the roost in a large house opposite the atash behram, and showered choice abuse on those returning after praying, which would have made Dadar Parsis blush. The little green parrot with the red beak was ubiquitous throughout Navsari but could only say "popat mithoo (sweet parrot),” unlike the kaskoo who acquired an amazing vocabulary.
During a wedding which lasted over four, and sometimes six days, the moholla was sealed off to juddin entry — barring the service providers, of course. Similarly, for a paidust and uthamnu. However, in the lesser mohollas, from the late  ’60s, Parsis began to supplement their eroding incomes by renting a part of their houses to heera ghasoos (diamond polishers), a tribe of young men from neighboring areas ruining their eyesight polishing diamonds on crude manually operated cutter wheels for a pittance of a wage. Half a dozen heera ghasoos would reside and work on the floor of a Parsi house.
From the mid-60s, in the lesser mohollas people gradually began to sell a house or two to local Gujarati businessmen who merged seamlessly into the neighborhood. Subsequently, a lot of Gujarati-speaking Muslims purchased Parsi homes in all mohollas — lesser or snooty — and the resulting cosmopolitanism slowly poisoned the Parsipanu (distinct Parsi ethnic identity and culture). By the turn of the century, only the name of the Vad remained Parsi. The clashing of cymbals and the calls from the minarets had drowned out the sound of the bells struck at every gah before the holy fires.
The mohollas are now bereft of Parsi residents who are concentrated in charity blocks in the grimmer parts of this fast developing town. The exclusivity has evaporated. The famed Kolah ice cream shop outside the atash behram is no longer operational. The oldest agiary in India, the Vadi Daremeher in Dastoor Vad, once bustling with ceremonies, has a lone non-Parsi checking the occasional devotee’s temperature at the entrance. Not a soul stirs in this historic fire temple. We search for the holy fire and finally find the flame in a small locked room. Being priests, we tender sandalwood, and the orange flames burst into life.