Global comforts

The newly constructed row of rooms overlooking a tranquil garden stands on the spot where a 100-year-old bungalow existed. The spanking new tiles are glossy, the beds low slung and sleek, the neat, ridged embellishments run as a common theme on the furniture and doors, reinforcing the modern look. The color television perched on the wall keeps the pilgrim in secluded Udvada in touch with the glitz and glamor, the trauma and tragedies of the outside world.

"Today the majority of people coming to Udvada are not even aware that luxury is available in a small town like this,” notes Homi Sidhwa whose family has been running Globe Hotel (Udvada’s oldest) for the past 77 years. "We have already air-conditioned two rooms in Homi Cottage (built almost 40 years ago by Homi’s father Kaikobad) and provision is in place to air-condition a couple of rooms in the new block as well,” states Homi’s son Peshotan who has coordinated and supervised every aspect of the new construction. "The new highway should be completed within six months’ time and that will reduce the travel time from Bombay to Udvada to a comfortable two-and-a-half hours,” adds his brother Percy. "The wider road with separate lanes will also eliminate the traffic jams of the past.”

As finances for the new construction were hard to find, the four rooms on the ground floor were built first, the next four after a year, bringing the total strength of rooms in the hotel to 24. "Much of the solid teakwood from the old bungalow has been used to make the new furniture,” explains Peshotan. He points out the gleaming handles and stoppers, the modern bathroom fittings with geyser, hot/cold mixer and overhead shower. Buckets are also provided for those who prefer old-world ways!

With Bombay architect Zarir Sethna designing the structure, the brothers point out that skilled labor is very hard to find in Udvada. Materials had to be purchased from Vapi and Billimora. The situation regarding old bugbears like power cuts and shortage of water — every hotelier’s nightmare — are improving. With two wells of their own, the Hotel gets municipal water twice a day and their own transformer takes care of power fluctuations.

"All these modern amenities are provided at reasonable rates, presently ranging from Rs 375 to Rs 425 per head with all meals,” asserts Homi. Parsi cuisine includes a breakfast of two eggs, bread, butter, jam, a side dish like mince or liver and tea. Lunch comprises rice, dal/curry and accompaniments, a mutton/chicken side dish as well as the traditional Parsi delicacy — fried boee usually with garab (roe). Dinner consists of two dishes with rotlis and dessert.

The demolished bungalow was the home of the Cassinath family, narrates septuagenarian Homi, tracing the Hotel’s history. It was offered to his late father, who was the estate manager there, around the year 1918. "The price was over Rs 14,000 and as my grandfather did not have the money he was told he could pay as and when he earned,” elaborates Peshotan. Thus Globe made a modest beginning in 1925, offering board and lodge at one rupee per head per day! The four rooms then available had no attached toilet or bath. The foliage all around was luxuriant, the mode of transportation to the Hotel, a palkhi (palanquin)!

The telephone did not make its advent into Udvada till the 1960s. "Ours was the first phone, the number being Extension 1. Calls were routed to us via the Udvada Post Office from the exchange in Bulsar, so there were plenty of eavesdroppers!” laughs Percy. The first also to have its own petrol fuelled electric generator (around the 1930s), Peshotan recounts how curious onlookers would gather in the compound to admire the luminescence of electric bulbs! Electricity arrived in the area as late as the mid ’50s.

The Globe Annexe (some distance away and facing the beach) was bought in the ’40s by Kaikobad from the Dubash family and became his sons Fali and Bomi’s share of the family property. As his brothers were working in Bombay, Homi continued to run the Globe Annexe as well, till it was sold off around the mid ’80s, a block of ownership flats — Premier Apartments — arising in its place, Peshotan narrates. Unable to withstand the onslaught of wind and waves and other difficulties, old seafront hotels like Kings and Majestic have shut down. High tide swells can lash up to three storeys, explains Percy, and the sides of old structures have been almost worn away. Rumors often float — of properties being sold at fancy prices!

Globe’s original boundaries extended almost up to the Iranshah itself, but a good part of the property was donated to the Minocher N. Pundole Adarian. The varasiaji stands in his stall outside Globe’s gate, the bakris (goats) bleat in their enclosure and are answered by their friends in the Adarian compound. Parsi ‘gifts and things’ stalls line the short walk to the Iranshah. The khari biscuit sellers, the doodh-na-puff (milk puffs in winter) vendors and the toran and papad makers come calling, the shoeshine man seeks to keep your footwear in fine fettle!

"Our mother Bapsy (who passed away in 2000) was the main pillar of the Hotel. It was she who taught us how to run it,” acknowledges Pesho­tan. Managing the Hotel as a joint family, Peshotan and his wife Zenobia (sister of Udvada’s new high priest Khurshed Dastoor) and Percy and his wife Zubina and seven-year-old son Tanishk reside with Homi in the lofty, two-storied ancestral home in the same compound. Peshotan and Zenobia’s older son, 14-year-old Rayomand, has completed his navar/martab ceremonies, as well as the qualification (saamel) required by an Udvada priest to perform the boi ceremony in the Iranshah. Younger son Jamsheed will be made a navar probably in May, explains the proud father. Both boys currently study at the Athornan Madressa at Dadar in Bombay.

The Sidhwas can be contacted at Globe Hotel, Udvada, Dist Valsad 396180. Tel Nos: 0260-2345243 (O) or 2345474 (R).