Around 1,000 people attended a prarthana sabha (prayer meeting) in Ratlam on August 8, 2024 for the late Tehmton Anklesaria, president of the Ratlam Parsi Anjuman, businessman, social worker and vice president of the north zone of The Federation of the Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India (FPZAI). That date would have marked his 81st birthday.
Top: Tehmton Anklesaria; above from left, at prayer meeting: Sohrab and Gustad Anklesaria,
state minister Chetanya Kumar Kasyap, Nina Anklesaria and other family members
As president of the Ratlam Parsi Anjuman for over 50 years, Anklesaria successfully organized the national meeting of the FPZAI in January 1993. He was instrumental in getting the Avantika Express from Ratlam to make a halt at Udvada and also defused "a tricky situation” in the Parsi Zoroastrian Anjuman Mhow (PZAM) during legal battles with members and others. That anjuman, in "gratitude for his untiring and selfless service,” had an uthamna for the departed on August 6 at the Mhow agiary. Prayers were also conducted from August 6 to 14 during the muktads, noted a communication from PZAM honorary secretary Zal Cowasji.
Born in Surat in 1943, Anklesaria lost his father at age five and was brought up by his mother Daulat Banu with the support of her family in Ratlam, said his son Sohrab. Young Tehmton took over the reins of the family’s business when Daulat Banu’s brother Gustad passed away in 1960. The enterprise he built at Ratlam "has a national presence today… Businesses include industrial and agro based machinery, a petrol pump, a cinema, a hotel, real estate development, automobile dealerships and power generation (diesel, solar and wind).” A dedicated Rotarian since 1962, Tehmton was a district governor of Rotary District 3040 comprising cities in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. He was trustee and chairman of the G. D. Anklesaria Charitable Trust, the nongovernmental body that built a Rotary Hall in memory of Tehmton’s late uncle. The Trust also built a dialysis center to serve the towns of Neemuch, Mandsaur, Dhar and Jhabua. Having studied at the Gujarati School, the philanthropist went on to become its executive chairman, a post he held until his demise on August 4.
The good Samaritan cum businessman is survived by his wife Nina and sons Gustad and Sohrab.