“Vaastu is a problem solving kit whose solutions are not to be ignored merely because they happen to be ancient”

This month Vaastuyogam interviews Mr.Behram Mehta of Aava fame. We met him at his Hansol, bottling plant, in Ahmedabad.

Excerpts from the interview:-

Introduction

I was born July 1960, in a typical Parsi family in Shahpur Bhai Centre, Ahmedabad. It was a riot prone area, but full of cosmopolitan neighborhoods nevertheless, with lots of Hindu, Muslim and Christian families living chock-a-block. I did my schooling in St. Xavier’s Loyola from where I matriculated in 1976; subsequently I completed my B.Com from H.L. College, Ahmedabad.

We had a huge family home of 32 rooms. In the backyard we carried on our family business of lime-mortar which was started by my forefathers in early 1900. The company K.M.Mehta (Kaikhusroo Manekjee Mehta) was popularly referred to as “Parsi No Chuno”. The chuna was such a fine product and the general public had so much faith in it that there would always be long queues of customers to buy the chuna at any point of the day.
Granite Business
Around 1980, when I graduated, cement was decontrolled. This led to a slow but definite erosion of our lime-mortar business to the point where my family saw no future in it for me So, after a short stint of about three years at Godrej and Boyce I got into the granite business. I started the first granite tiling plant in Gujarat. It was located in my garage at our sprawling residence at Shahpur. By the early nineties I had acquired granite quarries in Gujarat and we were exporting granite tiles to U.S.A and other mature markets of the west.

Chief Minister Shri Narendrabhai Modi with Mr. Behram Mehta at the inaugural function of Aava. Accompanying them are finance Minister Shri Vajubhai Vala & Revenue Minister Shri Kaushikbhai Patel

After we sold our Shahpur house to the Gujarat police in 1990, I moved my granite tiles factory to Hansol, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. The hitch in the business, that I discovered a little late in the day was that though the granite we quarried in Gujarat was of good quality, it was surpassed by the material available in south India. It came to pass that despite our own mines, we continued procuring granite from south India for our plant.

Every cloud has a silver lining. Whilst touring North Gujarat hunting for granite I realized that there was excellent quality natural mineral water available. My interest in granite began to dwindle and was replaced by a mounting excitement about the natural mineral water business and it was around this time that I came to know about Dr Ravi Rao from friends and business associates who had met great success due to Dr.Rao’s Vaastu prowess.

On Dr. Rao

I consulted Dr Rao around 2003/2005. Dr Rao visited my factory and made several suggestions, all of which we implemented wholeheartedly. Let me add here that every Vaastu change we made gave us results. We benefited from all the alterations made by Dr.Rao. The three very memorable things that Dr.Rao said and did were:-

1) Dr Rao forewarned me that I should settle down to one business. That mixing water and granite will end up with one business extinguishing the other. This in fact turned out to be true. Soon enough, I exited the granite business and am now wholly concentrating on the mineral water business. My only passion now is Aava. If I were to re-enter the granite business I would do so under the Aava brand.

2) He told me that the mineral water business would make me debt free. I am debt free now.

The First and the only indian Finalist at the 'Bottle water world' awards Best Bottle in PET category

3) He made a small but significant intervention in the design of my label. He asked me to add a red strip at the bottom of the label, which was not there earlier. This addition of red to the predominantly green label did help us a lot. Though he did not himself design the shape of the water bottle, it carries his approval. If someone says you are on the right path it is as good as showing you the right path.

Dr.Rao is a remarkable man who comes with really radical solutions. He has a lot of Vaastu conviction and this conviction translates into our confidence in Vaastu. Very importantly, he has mastered Vaastu. Though, earlier I did go to other Vaastu consultants, after meeting Dr.Rao I can say that he is the Vaastu boss. As compared to the others Dr.Rao is far more insightful and instinctive.

Vaastu is not a retrograde science. Rather, it is steeped in science. It is a problem solving kit whose solutions are not to be ignored merely because they happen to be “ancient”.

At homes, Vaastu must be implemented in a peaceful manner, without aggressive destruction of the existing arrangements. You must implement Vaastu to the extent you can. If, for example one is able to implement only 40% percent Vaastu one should go ahead and do that much rather than saying that since I am unable to do the whole thing, let me do nothing. Every little change has the potential of turning the tables on adversity.

Mineral Water

I quickly began on a series of hydro-geological explorations/experiments. By 2003 we realized that we were in fact sitting on reservoirs of good quality natural mineral water. It was God’s gift to us. In the meantime we also found that although there were over 1800 licenses for packaged purified water, there were no licenses for natural mineral water in Gujarat state or for that matter anywhere else in India other than the Himalaya Mountains.

Mr. Behram Mehta at the Aava Bottling plant

Aava is a Persian word meaning Angel of Water.

Aava is Natural Mineral Water originating from the holy hills of Taranga, a part of the world’s oldest mountain range, the Aravallis.

Aava is packaged in an environment that adheres to the toughest international certification standards.

Aava is western India’s only branded, bottled natural mineral water.

List of Aava’s Esteemed Clients

• Air India from 6 airports
• Spice Jet
• Jet Lite
• Ramada Group Goa
• ITC Welcome Group, Vadodara
• ITC Grand Central Parel, Mumbai
• Fortune Landmark, Ahmedabad
• IIM, Ahmedabad
• Hotel TAJ Ummed, Ahmedabad
• Hotel Cama, Ahmedabad
• CCI Club,Mumbai
• Ambani School,Mumbai