he first Parsis came to Bombay when it was but a small group of islands set in a marshy wilderness. Since that time, approximately five hundred years ago, Parsis and the city have nurtured one another, grown together hand in hand, danced a symbiotic dance. Parsis helped build the city-its roads, causeways, harbours, ships, institutions and charities; the city in turn rewarded them with peace and prosperity. But in a twist of fate, could this same city have been the community's undoing?

          I put that question to Jamsheed Kanga, the ex-Municipal Commissioner of Bombay. He was also a Parsi Panchayat trustee, elected on the platform of reform. The party he had helped form was called the CER-Council for Electoral Reform.
When I was looking for somebody to interview about the Parsi connection with Bombay, his name was suggested by many people. I met him in his office in the Forbes building in Fort one afternoon.

What was it like being the Municipal Commissioner?
  You see there are a multiplicity of problems that the city faces all the time. The Municipal Commissioner's job is to a great extent like fire-fighting. Of late the quality of people who get elected from various constituencies has deteriorated to such an extent that there is no real civic governance as such. Instead of the corporators and the corporation executive being a team as it used to be in the old days when Sir Pherozeshah Mehta and others were there, each deciding that, "Look-this is in the larger interests of the city, now let us do it," it has become very difficult for the Municipal Commissioner to rely entirely upon the corporators. Therefore it's a struggle of sorts going on all the time.

          For instance I remember an incident when they wanted contracts for conservancy, that is garbage removal, to be given to a questionable company. I refused to do it. In turn they refused to sanction a proposal for cleaning the storm water drains just before the monsoon. Now if you don't clean the storm water drains before the monsoon there's flooding in the city and if there's flooding the administration is held responsible. Ultimately the Municipal Commissioner always has to see that the city functions. You can't allow corporators to completely paralyse the city.

          But for me it was not just an ordinary job. The real pleasure for me was...........