“Unity is the prime issue”

"I am a hopeful person,” said newly elected Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trustee Maneck Engineer. In house to house campaigning the architect-engineer vice president of Godrej and Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. has interacted with well over 500 families, learning of their aspirations and frustrations firsthand.

A visit to his daughter Khushnuma Suntoke in New Zealand after the election and time to ruminate over what community members had told him had resulted in a relaxed and confident approach. Engineer’s comment at the December 4, 2002 formal inauguration of his term when he was introduced to the staff was that the Punchayet trustees as well as staff needed to improve their image with the public. And, he foresaw no antagonism, he told Parsiana at an interview on December 14, 2002: "I control a department where 1,500 persons work. I have 45 managers under me. I am confident that I can control anybody.”

After nearly four decades of construction activity for and on behalf of Godrej, Engineer is keen to share his expertise with the BPP’s housing and maintenance department. But at "the rate at which we are migrating and dying... we need a proper census to know whether we really need more housing,” he notes. He believes that the Punchayet needs to make a proper professional study before spending on new construction.

Engineer: "think of the community as a whole”

He relates an "alarming” experience that he had in the course of his campaigning. Reaching a building in a Parsi colony, the address of two voters on the Anjuman Committee, he found that both were dead. There was only one Parsi tenant left. The rest were non-Parsis, he said. "We need to find ways and means to survive and thrive in India.” Commenting on the ever quickening pace of modern life, he believes that the poor and needy need to be given community housing fast, but the Punchayet has not been issuing forms for over a year. "Those who can afford to purchase flats, can afford to purchase them outside the colonies.” Instead, people are selling their cosmopolitan flats and buying community housing he says, adding that it is the young couples who need to be accommodated in a hurry.

Engineer would be happier though if the population of Parsis, concentrated in Bombay, could be diffused to other parts of India. "Bombay can one day sink. It is sitting on a time bomb,” he observes, noting that nearby Taloja and Panvel have been the epicenters of earthquakes registering 3.5 on the Richter scale. "Double that and Bombay is finished!”

Though momentarily bogged down with social engagements, Engineer dismisses them as a temporary phenomenon. Uninterested in partying, to Engineer "work is worship. I spend more time on it, do whatever I take up perfectly. It is not likely that time pressures will interfere either with my professional work or my trusteeship,” he assures us.

Engineer almost joined Godrej by default. Wanting to proceed to the US after graduating from the Faculty of Technology and Engineering at Baroda in 1963 he had sought a scholarship from Godrej. His father’s employer Naoroji Godrej offered him a job instead with a cryptic "aapré pachchi joysu (we’ll see later).” Within four months Engineer had designed his first four-storied structure and construction began shortly thereafter. "Since then I have been connected with the construction of 13 factory plants and over 3,000 tenements,” Engineer had told Rashna Ardesher in an interview published in Change, the Godrej house journal. The notion and need for further studies in the US perished along the way.

Engineer spoke to Ardesher about the different work styles of patriarch Pirojsha Godrej, of Sohrab and of Naoroji. Pirojsha was very concerned about cost and discouraged any unnecessary expenditure; Sohrab was humane and methodical, cordial, educative and challenging; Naoroji, an untutored "genius” at engineering, spared no pains to ensure an aesthetic outcome. Engineer related to Ardesher how the sculpture "Wheels of Industry” was rotated with a heavy crane in all directions before positioning it so that it was displayed to optimum effect driving in and out of the Godrej IMTEX (Indian Machine Tools Exhibition) premises at Vikhroli.

Closely associated with the late Naoroji Godrej in the construction of Godrej Baug, Engineer recalled to Ardesher how it all began: "In 1978, the then trustees of the Parsi Punchayet Funds and Properties approached Pirojsha Godrej Foundation as also Naval Godrej to develop fallow lands on the western side of the Towers of Silence (Doongerwadi) comprising three plots, totally admeasuring 29,325 sq m. The trustees were earlier given a donation of six lakh rupees for the construction of Pirojsha Godrej Foundation Building at Contractor Baug, which they had had constructed through M/s Shirke of Pune. There were a lot of complaints about the quality of construction.

"So, when the trustees approached the Godrej Foundation for the development of these plots, Naval Godrej agreed to contribute from the trust provided the work was carried out departmentally through our construction department. The late (B. K.) Bomanbehram, the then chairman, and other trustees had a meeting with the trustees of the Godrej Foundation, when it was decided that we start with the development of Plot ‘O’ comprising four buildings and 110 tenements for which funds would be made available by the Godrej Foundation. The later developments of Plots ‘M’ and ‘P’ would only be partly financed by the Godrej Foundation. However, the major funds would come through cross-financing from the construction of Spenta. Our department toiled for over 15 years to complete this colony under adverse conditions.

With pet Alsatian Simba

"There was no access to these plots and obtaining ULC (Urban Land Ceiling) clearance was another obstacle. The entire Plot ‘M’ was an open-air lavatory for the adjoining Simla House zopadpatti (slum)... Plot ‘P’ was sloping from one end to the other, the difference in the level being a hundred feet! Taking advantage of drops in level, we not only constructed buildings at different levels with each wing one floor lower than the other, when each floor was connected with an elevated path in such a way that the persons staying in the last wing either climb up one-and-a-half floors to go to the top floor or go two-and-a-half floors down to go to the ground floor. This is a unique concept, the likes of which I have not seen anywhere in the world.

"Also, there are three levels of parking and the road to these levels is intricate and winding, going below the buildings and coming up the other way around. It is a delight to maneuver one’s vehicle up and down the slopes, the planning and designing of which was done when Naoroji Godrej was alive.”

The Godrej Baug Agiary is a construction dear to Engineer’s heart. Its location was decided by him in consultation with Naoroji Godrej in 1984. "This edifice... is a hexagonal-shaped building with numerological bearings of great significance in the Zoroastrian religion. I think this is one of the finest buildings I have planned and designed. However, before the fire was consecrated and after the Jokhis took over, some changes have been carried out in the structure, which mar the concept and design of the structure.”

Another challenging job was the design and construction of Plant 19 in Vikhroli in 1982-86. Inspired by the Thermal Power Project of Tata Power at Chembur and the submarine plant in the Mazagaon Dock, Engineer says he spent months designing the Plant to be sure of his calculations.

Currently Engineer says his department is occupied with the development and sale of ready-mix concrete. Originally set up for in-house use to ensure the quality of construction, it is now expected to reach a Rs 24 crore annual turnover. His construction department is also developing the surplus land at Vikhroli into the Godrej Garden Enclave Project of nine 20-storeyed towers to be surrounded by lush green landscaped gardens, water bodies and flowering trees. The Project includes a commercial building and a hospital. The Envirotech Project has grown from two decades of experience in sewage treatment and water recycling which is now being marketed. Engineer notes that men and machinery have been supplied to two five-star hotels as well as a heart institute located in the Bandra-Kurla complex. Also, after five decades of gardening and landscaping at Vikhroli his department provides consultancy services, vermicomposting and floriculture.

Seated with Gool and Zarin; standing Khushnuma and Porus Suntoke and Delnaz

A part of Engineer’s plans at Godrej is to create a large-scale aquarium at Vikhroli. He says he has always been fascinated by fish and corals and at one time had seven fish tanks housing more than 50 fish each in his flat at Cusrow Baug. "I can tell at a glance if a fish is sick,” he tells us.

For years the House of Godrej has helped in various ways to green Doonger­wadi. Engineer is now ready to experiment with Naoroji Godrej’s nephew Rishad Naoroji, in setting up an aviary there to get, acclimatize and breed vultures and had broken journey in Singapore on his way back from New Zealand to meet an expert there who trains birds of prey.

Wife Zarin (née Munsiff), daughter Delnaz, mother-in-law Gool Munsiff and two-year-old Alsatian Simba complete the Engineer household. Simba helps look after the fish and had woken up the family with repeated barks one night to find two fish out of water, writhing on the floor. "They would have died if Simba hadn’t woken us up,” acknowledges Engineer.

In his first BPP election when he challenged sitting trustee Dinshaw Metha and lost, Engineer says, "I didn’t get support from the public yet I fared well.” After the elections he had suggested to the BPP to formulate a code of conduct for the elections so as to ensure an issue oriented, free and fair contest. "Not doing so is to effectively belittle the high office of trustee and an insult to the intelligence of our community,” he notes. "No code of conduct has been formulated so far,” he adds, somewhat sadly.

In the second election when he challenged Rustom Tirandaz and won, he was aghast to find people from Australia and New Zealand "without knowing me writing against me in the Traditional Zarathustris Mailing List (TZML). My family is totally orthodox. We pray daily, regularly visit the fire-temple... Some members of TZML as well as some sup-porters of Mr Tirandaz, taking refuge in anonymity and under the guise of protecting the Zoroastrian ethos, unleashed a tirade not only against me but also against the illustrious Godrej family, simply because work for them!”

Putting such aberrations behind him Engineer says, "We have to think of the community as a whole... There are less than 45,000 Zoroastrians in Bombay. In the world there may not be more than two lakh... Orthodoxy, etc is secondary. Unity is the prime issue.”