Behram’s ark

As part of the research for his book, Pocha visited Salaya in Gujarat, where he saw first-hand how boats were built. Pic courtesy/Adi Pocha

For writer-director-ad filmmaker Adi Pocha, inspiration came from home. His theatre actor father Jimmy Pocha - "eccentric is a mild word to describe him," he says - gave him enough material to never run dry of telling a good story. "He was a comedian on Parsi-Gujarati stage, and had a pretty good sense of humour. As a teen, he'd get on a tram with one of those old [portable] wind-up gramophones and play it to entertain himself. It was quite a ridiculous thing to do [on public transport], but he enjoyed it. Another mad thing he and his friends did in their 20s was to drive down with one of their cars to [Flora] Fountain; they'd park it in the middle of the road, put it up on jacks and take out all the tyres. When a cop would come charging at them [for disrupting traffic], they'd tell him that they were trying to figure out which tyre had a puncture. Why this was entertaining to them, I have no clue. But that's who he was. He'd tell us so many insane stories, and there was no reason to disbelieve him," shares Pocha, over a telephonic call.

Jimmy Pocha's quirks - traits that were not lost on his son - became the inspiration behind Behram Rustomjee, the protagonist of his debut novel Behram's Boat (Leadstart Inkstate). Behram, he says, is a composite character. "But, he is largely based on my dad and myself."

The novel, which took five years to write, and another decade before it could be published, has had a long journey. Even longer is the journey that its protagonist Behram set his mind (and heart) on. Pocha's Behram is a cranky old Parsi gent, fuelled by a bizarre ambition - he wants to build a wooden boat that he believes will save his people, just like the Biblical hero Noah, who salvaged bits of the living race on God's instructions. Where Noah took a pair of every creature from the animal kingdom - one male and one female each - aboard his ark, Behram's grand scheme involves peopling his boat with young Parsi couples, whom he hopes will fall in love during the voyage. Together they will retrace the journey of how the Parsis came to India (the other way round, though) - from Sanjan in Gujarat where they first landed, all the way to Iran. Behram hopes to undertake the voyage regularly, says Pocha, who conceptualised and directed the popular television game show Saanp Seedi hosted by Mohan Kapur in the early 1990s, and was the force behind India's first daily soap Shanti (1994), which he wrote, created and directed.
At the core of this book, though, is the story of a shrinking community that drives old Behram into crazy damage-control mode. "I was thinking about this very seriously," admits Pocha. "Behram is profane and unlikeable, but his goal is straightforward - he wants Parsis to procreate. But that's what causes the problem. He is looked at as a pervert and his boat is seen as a sex boat, whereas it's none of those things," says Pocha, adding, "One of the bigger problems with the Parsi community, and this is what I feel, is that we have no institutional way of throwing young people together. Because we are so small, we tend to be exposed more to other communities by sheer statistical fact. Fundamentally, it all boils down to whether we can get Parsis to come together and fall in love. That's the essence of what Behram wants to do. His intentions are clean, perhaps his methods are unfortunate."

Adi Pocha. Pic/Sameer Markande

As part of the research, Pocha, who wondered where Behram would build such a large boat, drove all the way to Salaya in Gujarat. This was about a decade ago. "I spent several days there. And that informed the boat-building section in the book. They [the workers] place this massive long block of wood on mud, and then start building the ribs on either side. It's all done organically; there's nothing drawn on paper or designed beforehand. The boat-building skill is passed down generations."

Pocha, who turns 60 this year, confesses that he has always wanted to write a novel, but his all-consuming day job left him with little room to pursue his passion. "I come from a showbiz family. My mum [Uma Pocha] is a singer, so is my aunt [Usha Uthup]. As rebellion, I studied physics so that I could get as far away from that world. Eventually my dreams dragged me back. I think somewhere I got distracted with advertising and television, before I really found my core purpose," says Pocha, "which is to write, and write more."