....

We begin at Koolar & Co. Wood paneling, and black and white tiles on the floor. With a true Deco touch, the cafe arranges itself as a corner-facing display. Step out to walk down Adenwala road with its Copper Pod trees, their flame-like flowers in full bloom, and arrive at the Five Gardens — large enclosures of Queens Flowers, Sita Ashoks, and Persian Lilacs. The trees signify the ambition of the project that is the Dadar Parsi colony — the avenues of which are lined by a handpicked selection of foliage. As you step under their shade, there is even a drop in temperature, marked by the breezy flutter of overhanging leaves.

The Deco in Dadar Parsi Colony is the epitome of clever urban planning, and a hawk's eye attention to the arrangement of public space. Our host here, Zarine Engineer, granddaughter of Macherji Joshi, and board member of several trusts that look after the landscape of the neighbourhood, tells us the neighbourhood's story: "It was first imagined, planned and constructed by civil engineer Mancherji Edalji Joshi in the 1920s, and was the result of a housing crisis, and the devastation left behind by the Bombay Plague." According to Engineer, Joshi sought to build a Parsi colony that would accommodate the middle class and the lower middle class Parsis, instead of just the elite. It is thus a colony of many resources: a library; a multi-purpose hall to celebrate functions; a Madressa to train young boys for priesthood; and an impressive Agiary enclosed within the heart of the colony's Deco residences. Engineer tells us how, by bringing together several industrialist stakeholders, Joshi crowd-sourced the funding to begin a construction of over 200 buildings, on what used to be barren land.

....