COVER STORY

Choosing The Perfect Path

Riding, sailing, flying, driving, Abbas Jasdanwala has lived and continues to live life king-size, collecting cars and houses as he goes along. A philanthropist and a passionate hobbyist Abbas is a man about town, says Farzana Behram Contractor

There is a word in Urdu, unparallel in English which best describes Abbas Jasdanwala. The word is shaukeen. Now here is a passion-driven man truly fond of good living, interested in a diverse range of activities and who at 75 continues to lead a many splendoured life with great enthusiasm and unabated vigour.

To begin with he has many houses. And he spends time at each of them in rotation, looking after them all with great care. In Alibaug, where he goes for about three days every week he follows a routine. He eats an early and a light dinner and retires by 9 pm. He wakes at dawn, has a cup of tea and lingers around the garden, inspecting if all is in order. Then appropriately attired in breeches and riding boots, he walks towards the stables where he mounts one of his ex-race horses and trots off across the road outside his bungalow, to go ride on the beach for one full hour. Needless to say, horses are also Abbas’s passion.

Watching Abbas astride Rani riding the water’s edge with the wind on his face, dog Tendy running alongside, I couldn’t help feeling a tinge of envy. Wish I was on that damn horse, riding with that gay abandon, experiencing the ecstasy that was writ large on Abbas's face! Oh well, to each his own karma. Abbas must have done something good in his past life or perhaps even in the present one, to deserve such pleasures. In any case, he invokes Allah’s blessings often enough in his speech and praises His glory all the time, with his quietly uttered Subhan Allah, Masha Allah and Insha Allah. But then Abbas is also a poet at heart. He imbibed the love for poetry from his father and an uncle called Gulu. He speaks in language which is dotted with Sher-O-Shayri. There was a time he used to sing ghazals and even shared the stage at St. Xaviers with Lata Mangeshkar. It was his love for music where destiny played its hand at gifting him his wife Madhu Rani. Whenever Begum Akhtar came down to Bombay she would call him up. On one such visit to Sea Green Hotel on Marine Drive where she stayed, Abbas walked in to see Madan Mohan and other friends present and Madhu singing a thumri. "It was called tara tuta,” says a nostalgic Abbas, “I fell in love with her singing and literally chastened Begum Akhtar for not introducing Baby (that’s what he calls her, most lovingly) to me earlier. It is only after I met her that I understood what music really meant. And I feel thankful to God that I have a good ear and can appreciate this art.”

Madhu is indeed a very gifted singer, who was big in her own right, singing for years with top class musicians for All India Radio. Madhu’s ustad was Abdul Rehman Khan Saheb. She worked with music directors such as Khayyam and Jai Deoji. Her contemporaries were Naseer Khan, Nizamuddin Khan and Habibuddin Khan among others. It is unfortunate that she did not shine in the world of music as she should have, but she is not to be blamed. The music world in those days was a very competitive area and there were forces at work which kept Madhu down. But life has its way of compensating. Madhu is a sincerely wonderful human being, gentle yet straight forward. Anybody who knows her, loves her. And she has brought into Abbas’s restless life a sense of calm and peace and tenderness. If you don’t see too many pictures of her in these pages is because Madhu is shy and reserved. And UpperCrust respects such sentiments.

So where did it all start for Abbas? A rich father? “Oh no, I am a self-made man!” says Abbas, quickly adding, “No doubt I am the recipient of the duas (blessings) of my mother and father, but I worked hard to build my fortunes.” Abbas grew up in Bombay. He lived at Madanpura and went to school at St. Mary’s at Mazagoan in the family tonga. On the way to school, unknown to his mother he would go to the race course, unhitch the pony from the cart and ride it, then he would go to school. This went on for years. He picked up riding by just watching. He says he was a “poor kid with no boots!” Later he became a member of the Amateur Riders Club and Vasant Banker, the Secretary of the Club would give him all kinds of nasty natured horses to ride, just so that they may be exercised. That’s how he became such a champion rider. It’s another matter that subsequently he became a big race-goer, owning many horses, winning many titles and championships. Sunshine, that was his first horse which won two races for him, in one day! Abbas Jasdanwala is a popular name in racing circles. He was ‘Steward of the Meeting’, by invitation for almost eight years at the RWITC. Sundays for him are still reserved for horse racing.

There are other passions we still have to talk about. Flying and cars. One gave him joy, the other his first taste of money. In the 50s a young Abbas became a member of the Bombay Flying Club. His instructor was Capt. Lal and Abbas had to pay Rs 10 per hour to learn to fly. He indulged in this activity for two years and then the clandestine operation came to a halt. His mother, Fatma, came to know about the dare devilry of her young son and extracted a promise from him that he would stop all such nonsense!

That’s when he turned his attention to cars, something that would go on to becoming an everlasting love affair.

Abbas narrates, “One day I saw a Rolls Royce at the Worli Chor Bazaar at a kabaadi near Famous Studio. Duniya bhar ka scrap waha pada tha. I asked the owner, ‘Chacha, bechna hai?’ He asked me if I had money in my pocket. I said, ‘Yes, how much?’.'1000!’ said Chacha. I told him to clear all the junk away I was coming back for the car. I managed to put together Rs 900, savings of years of Eidi money, burrowing Rs 100 from a cyclewala in the neighbourhood. I came back with a battery in my hand to claim the Rolls Royce but the chacha had not cleared the mess. Anyway there was no starter, no nothing. I got a mechanic who put it up in the air and we worked on it all day. It was complicated, wouldn’t start. And then I cracked it. The reverse gear was where the 3rd gear should have been and vice versa. I put it in the opposite gears and the Rolls fired! I carefully drove it to our family petrol pump at Tardeo and spruced it up. I saw from the registration papers that the car belonged to Durga Khote, the actress. Anyway I modified it fully and took it to Poona. There, a dealer called Shaboo approached me offering Rs 20000 for it. I gave it away. It was a killing! Today it would be worth many crores. It was a red RR emblem car with a honeycomb grill, rare today…” concluded Abbas, without any remorse. But then today Abbas has garages all over the country, full of vintage cars and buggies which belonged to assorted Maharajas and which he actually uses in his everyday life. For example, when he is at his Poona house, every morning he rides his buggy to the race course which is five kms away. The horse which he will then ride, follows in a ‘float’. Two rounds of the race course and then he is ready to return home, again riding the buggy! Very stylish.

Houses, that’s his other passion. Abbas lives well, but not ostentatiously. He is an elegant, refined man with subtle tastes. After college he studied architecture, at the JJ School of Arts. That became his calling (New Consolidated Construction Company is his 63 year old company) and something that held him in good stead, helping him design his numerous homes. In Bombay, Poona, Goa, Mahableshwar, Alibaug and until recently in Matheran (which he sold because Baby does not like to walk too much). He is emotionally involved in every aspect of his creations. “Unless you are attached, you cannot create such things. I talk to my plants, I pray to God for their good health. That’s why you find so much life in my trees,” says Abbas, as he watches the mango tree so laden with fruit that the lower branches are almost touching the ground. Earlier he had reproached me for expressing the silly notion of plucking off some to make gud ambba. “They are meant to ripen on the bough, to be consumed as a delicacy at the perfect time!”

Abbas looked rather surprised when I asked him what his house in Alibaug was named. “I don’t have names for my houses. We just say lets go to the Mandwa house. Like-wise the other homes.” Hmm… interesting. To the question, “When did you build this house?” I got the following answer. “I can’t remember, must be almost 25 years ago. It was on marsh-land. Everyone said I was a fool to build a house on such land. But then you see, I had bought it without seeing it - on trust. A friend sold it to me, that too at an exorbitant price, but I created something out of it. Today of course everyone says I am a genius!”

The house in Mandwa built on almost six acres of land is just a 2 minute drive from the jetty. From their Breach Candy door to their Mandwa gate it takes the Jasdanwalas just about 42 minutes to witness a transformation of worlds. From urban to plush rural. There are chickens, ducks, birds, goats, cows, buffaloes on the property waiting to greet them. The milk and eggs, vegetables and fruit that land up on their table are grown by the loyal staff, who Madhu and Abbas treat as family. So they end up eating and drinking the freshest, most organic of foods. And then there is all the clean air, walks and strolls, buggy rides and what not.

Abbas’s claim that he goes to his Mandwa house to get fit and de-toxify certainly holds.