DOONGERWADI IN DECREPIT CONDITION

The community is aware that during the last board, the then Chairman, over-ruling Khojeste Mistry and Yazdi Desai’s orders not to use even non-chemical based pest control medication for termite infested trees at Doongerwadi, had given full authority to Dr. Homi Dhalla to supervise the greening of Doongerwadi in conjunction with BPP employee Dara Elavia and his staff of six malis. He managed to get many truck loads of red soil free of cost and with non-chemical herbal pesticide use had prevented trees from being eaten away by termites and falling down. The greenery and general ambience of Doongerwadi was appreciated by one and all, making it feel like a heaven on earth. Dinshaw Tamboly at one time in praise of Dara had called him a gardener with a natural green thumb. With support of the then Chairman, Dara gave no countenance to either Yazdi or Khojeste, who were waiting for time to get their revenge on him for disobeying them.

Unfortunately with the new Board taking over, Dr. Dhalla’s voluntary services were first dispensed, so that his monthly report of the state of Doogerwadi ceased. Then Yazdi Desai engineered to stop pest control by not allowing purchase of even non-chemical herbal pesticides, ensured removal of the Manager Jimmy Poonawala, who was supporting Dara in his greenery work, stopped daily supply of adequate water for the trees, watering by drip irrigation introduced by Maneck Engineer was made redundant, malis allotted to Dara Elavia were taken away on ground that he was running his own private Nursery and in general through a non-Parsi blue eyed boy of Yazdi Desai, one Dinesh who is ruling at Doongerwadi, made things as difficult as possible for Dara to maintain Doongerwadi in its pristine greenery. With Zareer Bhathena now a Trustee of BPP as well as Hon. Secretary of Parsi General Hospital, it was proposed that hundreds of truck loads of soil and debris from the construction of a new super speciality hospital there would be unloaded at Doongerwadi to the detriment of its vegetation and which Dara welcomed soil but had vehemently opposed any debris from being unloaded at Doongerwadi. Thus presence of Dara was needed as he would have ensured that he would have been a nuisance to allow debris deposit there.

Seeing the deteriorating condition of Doongerwadi made Dara’s heart bleed that 25 years of his service at Doongerwadi had gone in vain. He therefore set out to undo the damage being done to Doongerwadi and started recording the sorry state of the vegetation and trees and general ambience of Doongerwadi on his video mobile and threatened to put them up on Facebook and Whatapp only with the view so that the community could take corrective action to restore Doongerwadi ambience back to its glory and save Doongerwadi from further denudation.

As soon as the new CEO, Cawas Panthaky, a petty puppet in the hands of Yazdi and Randeria, learnt of the video, he immediately on instructions of Yazdi and Kersi issued a termination letter to Dara Elavia that his services are terminated at end of his contract ending on 31-3-2017 for taking the video without permission and for disrespect to Yazdi. One can well imagine the anguish suffered by Dara seeing his 25 years of labour of love to beautify Doongerwadi being thrown away by the new Trustees. Without so much as a courtesy of a show cause notice or summoning him to the board to seek his explanation for this behaviour of alleged insubordination, he was peremptorily served the termination notice. This is the way the present Trustees treat their staff and their decades of honest and selfless service to prime community assets.

Even this termination would be understandable in some way due to his alleged act of indiscipline but what follows next is sheer goondagiri and gross misuse of Leave License provisions. Dara has been told to vacate his premises near the Mobed Building within one month and hand over its possession back to the Trustees. SHOCKING REVENGE ON A STAFF.

The flat where he and his bed-ridden mother reside has not been allotted to him as staff quarters but as an independent allotment on Leave License basis, even prior to his joining Doongerwadi service. How can they order him to vacate when he has not breached any of the terms of the License. Even assuming it is staff quarters, no Parsi staff till date has ever been asked to vacate his staff quarters on retirement or removal. His license is valid and binding and unless he breaks some of the conditions of the License he cannot be evicted on the whims and fancies of the Trustees in power. All Trustees during their elections have campaigned that LL is being given and not Tenancy only to protect the Parsi only covenant and here we have a blatant misuse of the same license conditions to extract revenge due to his alleged insulting Yazdi Desai for not obeying him in the earlier Board.

In fact in Doongerwadi, the son of the hearse driver who expired many years ago continues to reside on first floor above Darvish’s residence. He was even offered alternate premises to vacate staff quarters by earlier board which was refused and he still continues to occupy staff quarters at Doongerwadi though he works outside probably on a ship only because he is another blue eyed boy of Yazdi Desai who has even had his house repaired at charity cost though he earns substantially on ship. So much for justice and fair play from the Trustees.

The majority Trustees due to their pact of being elected on a common panel are in no position to dissent else their unity will be undermined by others and hence have to willy nilly succumb to the vindictive politics of Yazdi Desai.

It is understood that both Armaity Tirandaz and Viraf Mehta have opposed his being served notice to vacate his premises on ground that he or any Parsi cannot be thrown on the streets though they have not opposed his termination of service, even though the angst of Dara is understandable. One hopes that better sense will prevail upon the Trustees and Dara Elavia should not have to waste his scarce resources on legal costs to contest the proposed litigation which is threatened if he does not vacate within one month of notice whilst the Trustees will use community charity funds to try and illegally evict him from his home.