"Everyone in Dahanu was at peace knowing Dr Beheramshah Mazda was just a phone call away… We saw how dedicatedly and selflessly the doctor served the people at large and emerged as a true hero. He didn’t think about his health, family or anything but kept working tirelessly to heal the patients,” noted a message from Pervez Irani, president of the Dahanu based Yzad Education Trust and vice president/trustee of the Iranian Zoroastrian Anjuman who first intimated Parsiana of 62-year-old Mazda succumbing to complications following Covid-19 at the Fortis Hospital in Bombay on May 27, 2021.
"His quaint, homely dispensary on the main street of town…made anyone lose the fear of seeing a doctor. No pretense, simple functionality… Within minutes he made his diagnosis, wrote a prescription and off you went feeling half cured. He attended to patients at his residence if required when the clinic was shut. He wore a stern expression but beneath that was hidden a rich sense of humor and a soft, sensitive and pleasant demeanor,” added Irani.
Top (and above): Dr Beheramshah Mazda flying
his ultralight hang glider
The only Zoroastrian general practitioner in Dahanu, he was the doctor whom not only the community trusted but even the local tribals turned to for relief from ailments. As per his practice, he never accepted consultation fees from any Zoroastrian. Many local adivasis too were exempted if they were unable to afford his paltry fees and in fact he would give them money to buy medicines. "He never worked for monetary gain. He was always there for everyone…A friend and a confidant, he was a gentle genius and a gem of a human being,” remarked Parivaz Irani who with her husband Ronnie has been running the restaurant Ronnie’s Restobar on Mazda’s property in Dahanu. She acknowledged the umpteen occasions when the dear doctor had treated members of her family.
Working tirelessly without a weekly off and having treated numerous Covid patients during the pandemic, Mazda had been felicitated by the mayor of Dahanu Bharatsingh Rajput in April 2021 for helping treat Covid victims. As Mazda had commented to the mid-day editor-in-chief Tinaz Nooshian the prior month, "For the past one year, I feel like the violinist on the deck of the sinking Titanic. But I am loving every minute. It’s like playing Russian roulette.”
Born in Bombay to Boman and Armaity, Beheramshah was an alumnus of the Shivaji Military School in Poona, St Mary’s School in Dahanu, St Xavier’s College in Bombay and the Government Medical College in Solapur. For a year he had even studied geology in Simla. While yet a student, his mother’s death in an ambulance, en route to a hospital following cardiac arrest, made him determined to bring better medical care to the residents of the coastal town, recalled Beheramshah’s elder son Farzan.
In memory of his dear mother Beheramshah had instituted a scholarship for deserving students in an educational institution. He also encouraged his wife Roxana to take up public service to assist the people of Dahanu. Though she did all the ground work, she depended on him for support and inspiration.
It was the privileged few who got an opportunity to experience the thrill of flying in his two-seater ultralight hang glider that he piloted with his navigational skills when he controlled the wings from the front, aided by the engine and propeller in the rear. For the adventure lover, an engine or accelerator falling off mid flight were as exciting as one journey when cruising over Boisar with Roxana, the trike (his contraption had three autorickshaw wheels on which it ran before takeoff) ran out of fuel. Mercifully they were carried forward by favorable winds that permitted them to make an emergency landing in a field. When he had taken the Parsiana reporter on one of his unforgettable flights (see "Flights of fancy,” Parsiana, November 2004) he had jested, "Have you done your kusti before coming?”
Although he would visit the Iranshah every month, according to Farzan, his father was "not ritualistic but ideologically very attuned to the religion.” Temperamentally akin, both of them shared a love for flying but gave it up a few years ago when the new coast guard regulations in Dahanu required paper work to be submitted before each flight. Beheramshah was equally passionate about his lemon garden where he cultivated lemons, mulberries and Singapore cherries, revealed Farzan.
The humble and practical doctor is survived by Roxana, Farzan, younger son Meherzan and elder sister Moti Irani.