“MS Saran, my father came to Shanghai in 1904. At that time, when Parsis came over, they usually stayed for life, you know … At that time he was with Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata [’s trading company], then he went on his own. He was very successful in managing two cotton mills — over a few thousand workers total … and he managed the mills — buying the materials, raw cotton, to produce the actual yarn and bed sheets in those days … and everything in between. And then aside from that, he’d made some very good friends among the Chinese, he really made very good friends. And he also invested in the Chinese companies and all that. And then, in those days, when there was a contract, it was a twenty-year contract.”

The family shared with me a sepia-toned photo portrait of his father, Bejan Dadabhoy Tata, who was born in Surat, India, in 1874. In the photograph, he is dressed formally, in a collared shirt, a cravat, waistcoat and jacket. The ensemble is topped by a stylish fedora.

His bushy eyebrows — the right one slightly cocked — frame the top of round glasses popular at that time. The spectacles are poised on the bridge of a generous nose, then comes a wide philtrum and thin lips, set in a well-defined bow-shape. The effect is of a man certain of his morals. A faint forward tilt of his shoulders hints at a yen for adventure. But his eyes hold a skittish look, as though he already suspected events might get the better of him.

Bejan Dadabhoy Tata was a distant cousin of his boss Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (R.D. Tata), who himself was a first cousin of India’s tycoon Jamshedji Tata.

In the summer of 1904, the same year B.D. Tata sailed east to help expand his cousin’s business, R.D. Tata’s French wife gave birth in Paris to their Eurasian son. They would name that boy Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata — J.R.D. Tata.

The Parsis in India had been involved in the China trade of opium and cotton right alongside the British, as early as 1756. The Parsis were keen ship builders, they were financially adroit, and entrepreneurial to their bones. The China trade had even given rise to Parsi surnames like Chenoy and Chinai, and the traditional clothes that Parsi women wear to this day are exquisitely embroidered with Chinese motifs.

From Hong Kong, some Parsis soon migrated northwards to Shanghai, even before the French government had negotiated with the Qing Dynasty for its own wedge of land that would be called the French Concession.

By 1854, the Parsis had established a Zoroastrian cemetery in Shanghai on Fuzhou Road. In 1866, right next to the cemetery, they built a fire temple at No. 538, Fuzhou Road.

Fast forward four decades and innumerable clipper voyages, to alight on Shanghai’s riverfront, in the early twentieth century, right behind the house of the French consul general, at No. 8, Rue du Consulat.

Bejan Dadabhoy Tata has prospered in the east, he has married and had children; his wife Naja and their older boys have settled here in Shanghai. On 20 May 1919, Naja gave birth to her last two children, a pair of boy–girl twins, Jehangir Bejan Tata and Aloo Bejan Tata. The Chinese term such a birth dragon–phoenix twins, the best combination of all.

Around them, Shanghai was exploding with construction.

The British-dominated, de-facto government of this tiny slice of land was a body known as the Municipal Council. It was busy paving over winding creeks, expanding roads, establishing the infrastructure of a major city. The British slab of waterfront, the Bund, was the bustling hub of commerce.  The park bordering the river was called the Bund Garden and a Municipal Council Orchestra, created in 1922, performed in a pavilion-shaped stage lit with gaslights.

Bejan Dadabhoy Tata and Naja hired a Chinese amah to look after their brood and take them to play in the park by the river. The Tata couple tried their best to impose their native Gujarati language at home, but their children answered in English. The youngest boy, the dragon twin Jehangir Bejan Tata remembers the Bund Garden, the music. He even recalls a fight.

“When I was about five years old ... even younger than that, my twin sister (Aloo) and I … you know they presently call it the Bund, formerly it was known as the Bund Garden, and ... I used to go with my sister, with the amah … They used to have a bandstand there, they used to play music, I don’t know what kind of band—military music? This I remember very well … One day there was a sand box and we were playing and an English girl threw some sand in my face, this I cannot forget, but I got very angry and I did not say anything and when she wasn’t looking, I put some sand in her sandwich. Then there was a big commotion … and it ended up with the amahs fighting each other … When we got home, I told my mother what happened and my mother said ‘Oh you naughty boy,’ and then the amah said, ‘No, she threw the sand first.’”

Jehangir’s mother Naja dominated the household. She did not speak Chinese, neither did his father, but there was no need, as the local Chinese staff spoke pidgin English. His father was kind to his children but he didn’t fuss around the family much. Work kept him busy.

By 1926, B.D. Tata was doing well enough in China to think about acquiring land and building a home on it. He picked an area further inland, a district still developing on the western outskirts of the International Settlement. The total area, in Chinese terms, was over three mu, or about 28,000 sq. ft. B.D. Tata could rent the land in perpetuity.

B.D. Tata had a vision — an ancient Indian vision — of a main house, plus a house for each of his sons. In his mind’s eye, he saw a large, gracious villa, with four smaller, semi-detached houses at the back. Lawns would surround the dwellings.

He hired prominent Shanghai-based British architects Davies Brook and Gran. The firm often favoured a style called Moderne — spare lines, curved-edge balconies, a streamlined look reminiscent of ocean liners and airplanes. The firm designed several Shanghai landmarks that are still extant, and a house for B.D. Tata.

The five buildings of B.D. Tata’s estate were completed in 1935. He named the big house Avan Villa, after his mother. The Tata family moved west across the International Settlement, past the Racecourse, into their grand new residence.

Jehangir Bejan Tata remembers every inch of the house:

“It was a seven-bedroom house with five bathrooms. It was three floors, the ground floor, first floor and second floor and the roof. The ground floor [had] parquet flooring, and as you entered the small hall [and turned] to the left, [there] was a bigger hall, then my mother had a prayer room. The first floor consisted of four bedrooms. My mother and father had a bedroom each with an adjoining passage, which served as a closet for clothes, and then my eldest brother had one there.

“There was a study, and from there, there was a large room — now we call it the living room — we used to call it the sitting room, and next to the sitting room was the dining room. And there were two beautiful murals, one known as a bas-relief, was like a sculpture on the wall, it was done by a [well-known Shanghai-based] Russian artist by the name of Poudgoursky. One was a mural in the dining room. And I think that if these two things were still there, I think the murals in that would be worth in the millions. I’m not joking, Ms Saran, I’m not joking.”

Excerpts from “A House for Mr. Tata; An Old Shanghai Tale” by Mishi Saran. The full piece was first published in “Travelling In, Travelling Out; A Book of Unexpected Journeys,” (HarperCollins Publishers India, 2014).