Waternamah : 300 Years of Mumbai’s Bhikha Behram Well 1725-2025 – Editor Bachi karkaria

Description

It stands, an island of tranquillity, untroubled by the tsunami of commuters surging out of Mumbai’s Churchgate station. Thus has it stood from the time Bombay was just beginning to write its fabled story.

Three centuries have passed since Bhikha Behram dug the well that bears his name. He was ordered to do so in a dream. The instructed spot was at the edge of the sea, and its yield could only be brackish and unpotable, right? Wrong. Almost as soon as pickaxe struck ground, it hit a subterranean spring, and sweet water gushed out.

And continues to do so unstintingly.

For 300 years, Bhikha Behram no Kuvo has slaked Mumbai’s thirst, physical and spiritual. Reclamation projects pushed this well inland, but it has remained uncontaminated and endlessly flowing for public good as much as community succour. Its sanctity goes much deeper than its miraculous boon-granting reputation. It embodies Ardivsura Anahita, guardian spirit of water, the element to which Zoroastrianism attaches as much reverence as fire. Indeed, all faiths invest this life-force with metaphysical power, and therefore make it an integral part of ritual.

Hence the title, Waternamah. This collection of deeply researched essays tells the amazing story of the Bhikha Behram no Kuvo—and of this element so universally central to sacred and secular wellbeing.