After two years of being shrouded under tarpaulin, plastic and aluminum sheets, the Roman goddess of flowers will look down from her perch atop the Flora Fountain in the center of downtown Bombay. The Fountain will function between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. each day initially, according to news reports. Commissioned by the Agri-Horticultural Society of Western India and thrown open in 1869, the structure has statues of four women just above street level, depicting the four seasons. Ornamental fish and faces of lions spew water around them. The Fountain carries a plaque memorializing the 44% contribution of Rs 20,500 by Cursetjee Parekh (1812-1896) towards the construction cost of Rs 47,000. With the first phase of the two-year project led by conservation architect Vikas Dilawari now complete, the monument was unveiled to the public by city mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar and Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray on January 24, 2019.
Flora Fountain: functional again
Photo: Bombaywalla Historical Works
Dilawari told Parsiana on January 5, while showing us around the work then in progress, that the defunct water management system in the three-tier Fountain posed a challenge during the restoration period. The 38-ft monument was built in such an ingenious way that no part of the masonry would get wet from the cascade of water, he said. Phase II will include laying of cobble stones in a plaza around the Fountain to give an old-world feel, landscaping and laying out of tram tracks unearthed from below the surface of the road around the Fountain, Dilawari shared.
The Portland stone edifice was dedicated to the Bombay governor Sir Henry Bartle Frere and was for a while known as Frere Fountain. The design was prepared by R. Norman Shaw and executed by James Forsythe. The names of the architect and sculptor are not as prominent on the monument as the plaque to Parekh!
China trader Parekh was a partner in the firm of Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Sons and Company. His other philanthropic deeds include the endowment of the Furdoonji Sorabjee Parekh Dharamshala at Hughes Road; another Parekh Dharamshala, the Parekh Dispensary and the Parekh Technical School, all in Surat (see "Alms and the man,” Parsiana, September 1997). A key donor to the victims of the famine of 1863-64 in Surat, Bharuch and Diu, H. D. Darukhanawala’s Parsi Lustre on Indian Soil credits him with expending Rs 5.21 lakhs "to support European, Hindu, Parsi and other families in Bombay” between 1862-65.