![]() The land was as forgiving as it was yielding. Grandchildren went away, lured by city jobs and the promise of golden opportunity abroad. Those who followed old Mr Irani acquired and tamed their own sprawling acres. The house of the man who first brought chikoos to this area still stands near Dahanu Railway Station, the lush acres flourishing in the care of his grandsons. With their own input of hard work, they were certain that it would sustain them, as it had their fore-fathers back home. Some set up tea shops in Mumbai, but the more intrepid fanned into the interior, confident that land was land, even if in an alien country. This tough, if rustic, race had been impoverished by discrimination in their native Iran and they too made the journey that their fellow Zoroastrians, the Parsis, had made nearly a millennium earlier. ![]() As an environmentalist, she would have fought such desecration anywhere, but in the Gholvad she had an emotional stake, as these chikoo orchards had been planted by the Iranis, many of whom had cleared the grass-covered tracts with their bare hands when they had arrived here a hundred or so years ago. Her feisty Irani genes made up for whatever she lacked in the ‘warrior-queen’ department. Then Nargis Irani descended on my office like a Persian army. ![]() I had no idea of the deep, dark groves that lay beyond the pedestrian platform. I had passed Gholvad several times on train journeys to Ahmedabad-quaint, sleepy stations characterised by locals selling small baskets of just-picked fruit and bundles of lemongrass and peppermint leaves with which Parsis flavour their tea. Literally, I discovered this unbelievable idyll just a 3-hr train ride away from Mumbai, when the equally incredible Nergis Irani launched a one-woman crusade against the thermal power plant being set up by the Bombay Suburban Electric Supply in Dahanu, the chikoo bowl of Maharashtra. It is the ultimate laid-back experience, but for me it started as a power trip. ![]()
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