When I started this blog, I intended to write about the places I visit and the people I meet there. But the story of Mr. and Mrs. Noble is so incredible that it did deserve an exclusive narration.
So once upon a time, there was a Parsi man. He had a nice home in the most sophisticated part of Pune, a Mercedes at command, a beautiful wife and everything one could ask for. But he was not happy. He was not living his dream. His dream was to live a sailor’s life. Live near the ocean, be on the ocean for living. The comforts of the city did not temp him much. After resisting to his temptations for a while, he decided to follow his heart. Being in Pune, he was just a few hundred kilometres away from the sea. But there he could not get what he dreamt of. He could be near the ocean but he could not sail, he would have to find some other means of living. So where would he go, what would be the place where all that he wished for would be granted?
Far far away from his home-town, on the extreme eastern part of India, there lied a tiny island – the Island of Andaman. The sailor’s mind was set on that. So, he decided, he decided he would go to Andaman to pursue his dream.
“You are mad!!, How could you think about going to a land you don’t know anything about!!!” People around him thought he was crazy. But he was firm. His wife stood by him. She had a bigger challenge in front of her. She had to leave all her comforts to go live on a completely unknown land, miles away from home, family, life. She did not know if she could get a decent house as soon as she goes there. She did not know how long it would take to get her own house. But then she thought that if she does not agree with the plan, it would be unfair to her husband…. after all, it was him who she owed all her comforts to!!
And so, the Sailor and his wife moved to the Andamans. And there they realized that capital city Port Blair had nothing, for the starters.
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“I told him only a madman Parsi can think about moving here!”, Dinaz exclaimed.
We were sitting in the porch of pretty little water house, that Dinaz owned, having our lunch and she was telling us how they moved to Andamans some 30 years ag.
“I had a nice well-set life, in city like Pune” and that was like the biggest surprise to me! “What?? You are originally from Pune?? You serious?” “Ohh yeah! We used to live in Salisbury park. I had my mercedez, all my club memberships like Poona Club, Ladies club everything. We left all that to be here”.
“Oh yes, but then he wanted to be a sailor you know. And he was not happy and I didn’t want that. After all, I owed all my comforts to him. So I decided to support him”.
“Ours was the first actually built house, with tiles and walls and rooms, you know. Otherwise there were just the shacks here and there”, said Dinaz, while having lunch with us on her cozy water house.
“Thank god he was a shippy!! He used to get all that we need from Chennai or Kolkata when he would come back from the voyage. When our house was done, people used to come to see that. It was like a mansion you know.
Even the grains, the oils and everything was difficult to procure in those days. So I am so used to manage well in available resources, you know..”
“We moved here in 1985, so I am local in terms of Andaman now!!”
“My husband did everything, I am just trying to maintain what he had set-up, the house, the farm, the water-house everything!!”
She now grown cinnamon, pepper-corn, pepper, and many other spices. Mind you, its all organic. It has a huge compost tank and the farm-works were at work when we visited.
“Can I take a few as souvenir? I still can’t believe what I have experienced.”
“I plan to build small cottages on the reef. There are so many things I want to do you know, even the water house, needs some maintenance”.
That triggered our discussion about the history of the water-house. I mean, come on, who could think of building a house, on the rock, in the middle of the sea backwater?
“So who thought about building this water-house? I mean how did you think of building a house on the rock in the middle of the back-water?”
“Oh, it was more out of necessity! Whenever we would get any material for our house of the farm, the boats would not go till the island. Also, we were very new here. So it used to get little uncomfortable to stay on the island with the farm-workers. So we thought of building something here. But when this house was built, we realized how pretty it had turned up. We would just stay here for days on. In fact we still do. Last year, when there was a quake and Tsunami in Japan, me and my daughter were here. We had come here around Wednesday or Thursday with intention to leave the next morning, but then we just stayed and stayed and stayed, until on Sunday, Mohan (the caretaker of her homestay) came saying, “Madam udhar poora Japan dub raha hai par tum idhar se nikalta hi nahi!” (The whole Japan has been swept away in sea and you don’t want to get out of here). It is always like that. Once anybody comes here, they just lose the track of time.”