Khada Parsi

Khada Parsi, also called the Cursetjee Fountain, is a Grade I heritage monument at the foot of the Byculla bridge in Mumbai. Installed in 1867, it carries a life-size cast-iron figure of the Parsi businessman and philanthropist Cursetjee Manockjee on a pillar about 40 ft tall. His son Manockjee Cursetjee, inspired by a Chilean mermaid fountain he saw at a London exhibition in 1862, commissioned it from the fountain maker John Bell. When the municipality objected, he set it up on land he had given in Byculla, without approval or ceremony.

The figure wears a jama-pichori and shawl and holds sandalwood and a book. Four bare-breasted mermaids blowing conches spout water at the base of the Gothic Revival pillar, which recalls Ashokan and Persepolitan columns, and eight gas lamps light it. Moved across Clare Road in 1928 and later hemmed in by flyovers, it was restored by the BMC in 2014, lamps and fountain included.