Banished From Goa, Their Grandfather Brought Goa to Mumbai With 140 Coconut Trees

Several things happened at once, the minute I set foot on the pretty parcel of land that goes by the name ‘Fernandeswadi’. For one, my heartbeat slowed down; I started to breathe easy — the air did not reek of Mumbai dust, and as I attempted to get my bearings, Coco, the beautiful Indie, led the way to the homestay, making a better GPS than any I could hope for. 

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My conscious mind — aware of being just an hour from Mumbai city — had a tough time talking down my senses, which believed we’d just touched down in Goa. The latter won. Blame it on the quintessential sea smell, the hushed village silence that’s so typical of Goa, and the 140-odd coconut trees dominating the skyline. 

After settling down, next, in what I saw as a way of exchanging pleasantries with the land, I sipped on a drink of coconut water (the sweetest I’ve ever tasted). 

Rohan Fernandes, the third generation, now managing the homestay along with his wife Jharna Thakkar, calls the trees his grandfather’s prized possession. He shares, “My grandfather James Heredia spotted this place way back in 1947. It was a barren land back then, but he liked that it was near the beach and had a beautiful view of South Bombay. But he decided to buy the property only if and when India got independence, so that his taxes wouldn’t go to the British government. To his luck, in August that year, India got its freedom.” 

It’s amazing how the homestay’s journey is interspersed with vignettes from the Fernandes family archives. I find myself flitting between eras as Rohan continues his tale. 

The homestay with the Goan DNA

The first thing you’ll remark about Fernandeswadi is how far off the tourist trail it is. 

That’s intentional, Jharna points out. Existing in silos helps the place retain its calm.

As you walk through the land, you’ll see that it’s guided by the rhythms of nature. But what’s now shades of green told a very different story in the 1940s. Gesturing to the 10 acres that surround us, Rohan says, “The land was a mix of varkhas zamin (uncultivable land) and shet zamin (farming land). The locals cautioned my grandfather against trying to plant anything on the land, because they believed nothing would grow.” 

Today, almost eight decades later, the coconut trees smile at their misgivings. Turns out, they have an interesting story of how they came to be. It’s rooted in the Goan Liberation Movement that extended from 1940 to 1961, seeking to free Goa from Portuguese rule. 

Rohan’s grandfather, James Heredia, was Honorary Consul for Bolivia and Brazil. “He was a firm believer that Goa belonged to India and not to the Portuguese. And so, he and his friends set up the Goa Liberation Front, which comprised people from all over who would work closely to reintegrate Goa with India,” Rohan explains. 

When the Portuguese found out about it, they were very upset. “They stripped him of his sponsorship, banished him from Goa, confiscated the family land, and threatened to arrest him if he ever came back. He was a heartbroken man. That’s when he decided that if he couldn’t ever set foot in his homeland again, he would create his memories of Goa right here, on the outskirts of Mumbai,” Rohan adds. 

That, today, is Fernandeswadi. 

A seashore flavour an hour away from the metropolitan

Three decades of research in the forests of Canada led ecologist Suzanne Simard to come to a beautiful conclusion — trees talk, often and over vast distances. Her studies were focused on the communication systems between the roots of trees that have long since lived on a land. And perhaps there’s merit to this, I think to myself, as I amble along the perimeter of Fernandeswadi, where I can swear I hear the trees whispering. While I don’t quite understand their language, Rohan and Jharna do. They have names for each. 

Rohan shares, “My grandfather would personally go down the entire Konkan coast up to Goa and pick up different cultivars. We have a Singapore variety, a Sri Lankan variety, and it’s only when I got into plantation that I realised that we have four different species of coconuts growing on the land.”

When the couple first decided to dabble in farming in 2017, they did not have previous exposure to rely on. They’d only just decided to trade their Mumbai hustle — Rohan is an ex-advertising professional, and Jharna is a chef and writer — for the calm of Uran. But as Jharna reiterates, “Of course, we needed to plan for the move. The house was very basic, and we needed to upgrade and modify it.” 

While there were structural modifications done, the basic framework of the home remained unchanged, featuring the exceptional design sensibilities of Rohan’s uncle, Charles Correa, chief planner for New Bombay (Navi Mumbai) and the brain behind the Mahatma Gandhi Sangrahalaya (Mahatma Gandhi Memorial) at Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, among other projects. 

As Rohan and Jharna walk me through the home, I can almost smell the nostalgia in the decor; it’s a medley of vintage charm. Almost everything in the home is fashioned from repurposed material, Rohan explains, gesturing to the fans whose rods were once water pipes, the chandelier that was once a gate light, and the staircase that was being discarded from Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital. The home sits at the intersection of two eras, past and present.

It’s built with a load-bearing structure with support columns at either side of the extremities, and the three bedrooms are designed in a way that each has a lovely view of the sea. Light and air flit in as they please through the home, ensuring ample ventilation. Uran receives plenty of rainfall, and so, the homestay maximises its water harvesting with a five-lakh-litre capacity that suffices for all their needs. Ample rainfall also means thriving fields. 

Harvesting my lunch 

The land and its produce have a sway over the menu at Fernandeswadi: Kutchi dahi tamatar raita (a side dish made from thickened yogurt mixed with raw or cooked vegetables and seasoned with herbs), Shimla kachumber (Indian salad), gavarachi bhajji (cluster beans vegetable), Goan-style fish fry, and aloo fry (marinated and fried potato wedges), fiery monsoon pickle, radish leaves salad, jams, preserves, and compotes. 

The fields are filled with Alphonso mango trees, chikoo trees, radish, drumsticks, tadgola (ice apples), bananas, and papayas. Don’t just marvel at the produce, go ahead and harvest your own at the farm tours conducted by Rohan. You’ll be assisted by Kishan mama, whose farming knowledge has helped the land flourish. 

In recent years, Jharna says, their understanding of farming has been greatly shaped by the lessons from the land. “Before starting farming on the land, we worked on an organic farm in Switzerland in 2016 to understand the basic principles that we could apply here. Doing something of this sort is a big shift from the keyboard to the ground, and you have to be mentally and physically prepared for it.” 

Learning is an ongoing process. Right from composting their kitchen waste to developing a banana circle (greywater recycling and nutrient-producing pit), the couple is discovering ways of scaling the way they deal with waste. 

And, a question they get from most city dwellers is how they managed to do it all. This led the couple to start thinking along the lines of conducting workshops to share their knowledge. 

Jharna says, “Last year, we hosted a series of summer workshops for children. The themes covered were mobile phone photography, raised bed building, making wooden bag tags, nature doodling and writing, song writing, natural soap making, seasonal summer cooking, botanical dyeing, bamboo art, and how to be your dog's BFF. Next year, we're hosting workshops for adults who want to do what we're doing: quit the city and run a homestay/farmstay.” 

Called ‘Livin’ the dream’, the workshops will see the couple joining hands with other homestay owners who’ve had a similar trajectory. “We plan to invite attendees to come stay at Fernandeswadi or by the beach or in the buffer zone of a wildlife reserve, where we and a few other self-run, hands-on hosts will teach you the ABCs of running your own place,” she adds. The next workshop will be held on 21 and 22 March 2026. 

It’s been quite a day at Fernandeswadi. The sun is setting. I have a final question for my hosts — or let’s use the word ‘company’ — “What’s your favourite spot on the land?” They tell me it’s the set of chairs at the edge of the property, the ones that look out to the beach. So we head there, chai cups in hand, Coco leading the way, and watch the sun set.  

Book your stay and register for the workshop here. 

All pictures courtesy Fernandeswadi