Readers' Forum
Develop Udvada
I am totally opposed to the futile (and fanatical) idea of retaining Udvada as it is. The desire to maintain the status quo is its undoing and will ring its death knell.
Apart from the Iranshah, there is nothing there for non-Parsis who are eager to develop it. Udvada is like Stratford-on-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, which is brought alive every day by the five historical houses — in the nearby village of Shottery — visited annually by millions. This small town thrives entirely on one name: Shakespeare. The same is not the case with the Iranshah which is the terrestrial pinnacle only of our faith.
Every year my wife and I visit Udvada for a day or two and return with a saddened feeling of stagnation and decay. We were there on March 29-30 this year. After 8.30 p.m. it becomes a ghost town, like the old and abandoned towns in Canada along the Yukon and those in Australia. Most of the Parsi-owned houses are locked up as there is no source of income.
We should let the Gujarat government develop Udvada, with adequate safeguards for the Iranshah and its adjoining precincts; reinforce the maritime wall behind the street where the Iranshah stands; and rein in unscrupulous builders by protecting our properties. Every structure there is not a heritage one, and there are some premises which remain locked or whose occupants are too poor to repair them. Our last visit has reinforced this unbiased observation.
If there is a builder who buys out an entire row of structures, puts proper money into the hands of the owners and re-houses them adequately, what’s wrong with development? Many owners are unaware of another asset locked inside their houses — the 80 to 100-year-old furniture, some of it ornate, which is in great demand by urban decorators and furnishers.
If some small and medium scale industries are permitted to operate in Udvada, they would exert pressure on the local and state governments to improve the power and water supply and introduce a modern sewerage system, which are lacking today. Industrialization will also provide employment for Parsi youth who have been absent from the town because of poor educational amenities and lack of employment opportunities. For nearly 70 years this had been the fate of Navsari as well, until the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) established industries there. The nearest GIDC is at Vapi and Udvada has become a town of the old and faltoos (unemployed). What a shame!
Conservationists, with their myopia, are killing Udvada. They need to be given basic lessons in economics, environment and town planning. If a white paper on industrialization is issued, Parsi developers and industrialists could venture into Udvada.
We have lost our ability to look outward. At one time we looked as far as China and Japan, Aden, Nairobi, Mombasa, Jinja, Kampala, Dar-es-Salaam and Johannesburg, Pretoria and the Transvaal. The world was our canvas. We were great adherents of the old Gujarati adage: "Jé faré té charé/ Baandhai dhor bhukhé maré (Those who roam prosper/ Tethered animals die of hunger).”
Apart from the Iranshah, there is nothing there for non-Parsis who are eager to develop it. Udvada is like Stratford-on-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, which is brought alive every day by the five historical houses — in the nearby village of Shottery — visited annually by millions. This small town thrives entirely on one name: Shakespeare. The same is not the case with the Iranshah which is the terrestrial pinnacle only of our faith.
Every year my wife and I visit Udvada for a day or two and return with a saddened feeling of stagnation and decay. We were there on March 29-30 this year. After 8.30 p.m. it becomes a ghost town, like the old and abandoned towns in Canada along the Yukon and those in Australia. Most of the Parsi-owned houses are locked up as there is no source of income.
We should let the Gujarat government develop Udvada, with adequate safeguards for the Iranshah and its adjoining precincts; reinforce the maritime wall behind the street where the Iranshah stands; and rein in unscrupulous builders by protecting our properties. Every structure there is not a heritage one, and there are some premises which remain locked or whose occupants are too poor to repair them. Our last visit has reinforced this unbiased observation.
If there is a builder who buys out an entire row of structures, puts proper money into the hands of the owners and re-houses them adequately, what’s wrong with development? Many owners are unaware of another asset locked inside their houses — the 80 to 100-year-old furniture, some of it ornate, which is in great demand by urban decorators and furnishers.
If some small and medium scale industries are permitted to operate in Udvada, they would exert pressure on the local and state governments to improve the power and water supply and introduce a modern sewerage system, which are lacking today. Industrialization will also provide employment for Parsi youth who have been absent from the town because of poor educational amenities and lack of employment opportunities. For nearly 70 years this had been the fate of Navsari as well, until the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) established industries there. The nearest GIDC is at Vapi and Udvada has become a town of the old and faltoos (unemployed). What a shame!
Conservationists, with their myopia, are killing Udvada. They need to be given basic lessons in economics, environment and town planning. If a white paper on industrialization is issued, Parsi developers and industrialists could venture into Udvada.
We have lost our ability to look outward. At one time we looked as far as China and Japan, Aden, Nairobi, Mombasa, Jinja, Kampala, Dar-es-Salaam and Johannesburg, Pretoria and the Transvaal. The world was our canvas. We were great adherents of the old Gujarati adage: "Jé faré té charé/ Baandhai dhor bhukhé maré (Those who roam prosper/ Tethered animals die of hunger).”
B. T. DASTUR
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