The big baug theory

I'm a Bandra girl. Make that a Parsi girl growing up in Bandra because that's not where most members of my tiny fistful of a community live in this city. While it's incredible fun to be born and brought up in the beautiful Queen of the Suburbs, I guess I might have missed out on a big part of bawa bonding by not being to the baug born.

Still, there is always a close connect somewhere for everyone. Mine is with the city's only unwalled baug – Dadar Parsi Colony – home to both my parents till they got hitched and preferred the more cosmopolitan climes of Bandra. My brother and I spent endless evenings playing on the manicured lawns of the Five Gardens girdled by buildings our grandmother and an assortment of aunts lived in. My cousins live in two facing family flats on these ancestral acres on either side of the statue of Mancherji Joshi, my mum's grand-uncle and founder of this colony of leafy lanes.

Thousands of Mumbai's Parsis and Iranis over generations inhabit these housing hubs. Enjoying their affordable accommodation and serenity proves a boon for a community which has visionary forefathers to thank. Farsighted philanthropic clans invested in providing such residential complexes expressly to serve as sheltering havens. Oases of peace today amid the utter urban chaos of a badlands crowded with ugly matchbox apartments, the verdant baugs envelope you in comfort and camaraderie.

Way before any Jiyo Parsi campaign badgered us to birth more babies, generations of couples met and married within their tight-knit colony zones. Rather like Dolly and Bomi Dotiwala of Navroze Baug in Lalbaug. They cherish the long association with their mentor Adi Marzban, whose plays continue to entertain hundreds on Parsi New Year nights.

As kids, Dolly Kateli of M Block and Bomi of N travelled together from the colony to their respective schools. The common tram trip allowed ample time for an exchange of love notes. Dolly first went onstage in Navroze Baug, acting as a local tarkariwali hawking vegetables. "People gathered on balconies to watch shows we put up in the space between M and N buildings. My parents' place was the changing room," she recalled. "I was called the colony Dev Anand with my hair puffed exactly the way he wore his," added Bomi.

Other writing assignments have taken me to Rustom Baug in Byculla, where I always pause to admire its solid stone buildings. Rows upon row of them benignly oversee children running across lovely yawning lawns. Treading populated baug turf like this, you wonder, with surging hope, if it's true about our dwindling numbers. But it tragically is. An explosion of colourful Gujarati phrases you hear in surround sound simply lulls you a little bit into believing otherwise.

For a proper date with the faith, head midtown to Khareghat Colony on Hughes Road. Safe inside the FD Alpaiwalla Museum on its grounds are secrets of long ago Iran. No lesson in Persian history is complete without a tour through this treasure trove that curator Nivedita Mehta has done a fine job of introducing to visitors. Uncommon exhibits include a framed firman (land grant) issued by Emperor Jehangir to Dadabhai Naoroji's ancestors and the Cuneiform inscription of Artaxerxes III at Persepolis.

Far north in noisy Jogeshwari, Malcolm Baug offers a balm to calm the nerves as you turn in for welcome relief from the crazy main road leading to its gates. To be greeted by paths lined with old cottages ringed by garden patches is pure pleasure. Well worth ticking that 'We will be delighted to attend' box printed on invitation cards for weddings hosted here.

Cusrow Baug stands proud sentinel as our southernmost bastion on Colaba Causeway. My best friends live within. But like anyone else, I can as easily wave a hand up at a window to acquaintances in most blocks lettered from A to U (mysterious how I, L, N and O are absent). When it was recently shutters down for the last original shop fronting this colony from the day it was built with Wadia funds in 1934, I felt a pang akin to personal loss and wrote a story on it. Maybe I was heeding and feeding my genes? It just happened to be the charming Aga Brothers Dairy Farm selling Bombay's best Frankie rolls!