Considering the dodginess of this internet connection, Ill limit myself to recounting my wonderful visit to Ahemdabad, where I stayed with the cousins of my good friend Abhi. As these journeys must, mine started at the Pune train station, where I spent the requisite two hours shuttling from window to window trying to book a ticket. Note to any future visitors to Pune - there is inded a window 29, even if you can't find it at first. So keep looking, and don't be afraid to use the old "meri madad kijie" line ("please help me") whenever in doubt. In fact, most people really are quite helpful, and thankfully a lot of them speak english of some sort. Window 29, once found, was indeed my salvation, though I still don't understand the whole waitlist system (I was #36 but my ticket was confirmed via an emergency quota - the emergenbcy being, um, that I really wanted to go to ahemdabad?). Ticket purchased, bags packed, berth found on the Ahimsa express (so named because it heads to the city where Gandhi preached his philosophy of non-violence). I was traveling on the second anniversary of the most recent Gujarat riots, which didn't exactly fill me with comfort, though not being or appearing to be Muslim made me feel a bit better. In fact, the ride was thouroughly uneventful - I chatted with some blokes from Ahemdabad, one of whom kind of bugged me out with his VHP inspired "Muslims are inherently violent" blather. I tried to offer a more compelx perspective, but you can only get so far when its subtlety vs. ultra-rightist over simplifications. Was thankful when lights out meant I could settle down on my little sleeping berth until the morning. We arrived two hours late and Abhi's cousin Nimish met me the train station. Its really nice to be met at train stations in India. Much nicer than fending off the rickshaw wallas anyway.
Nimishbhai (like Nimish-uncle) was the consummate host. He put me up in a hotel/club thing near his house and basically took care of me for the rest of the time. Vinod, his driver, was pretty much at my disposal and I didn't even have to go to the trouble of planning my day, since he just told me where to go. Not a bad way to start the trip, since being on your own in India can be a bit daunting. My first day started with lunch at his house - delicious home cooked Gujarati food. Then Nimish accompanied me to see Gandhi's ashram, which was a totally powerful experience. Something about just reading the well know facts of this mans life in the totally simple and rustic place where he began his political career and launched the famous salt march. Not much to see at the ashram but the effect is all the more powerful for the rusticness of the locale. Gandhi was, after all, a fairly simple man in many ways and this was a big part of his appeal. Suffice it to say that if each of us held to our highest ideals even a fraction of the time that Gandhi managed to. . I know the story is a bit more complicated than all that (political stories always are) but for the moment it was plenty to just feel and believe in one man's example, taken without any skepticism. We also visited the Hanuman temple (Nimish goes every Saturday for darsan and prasad) and then had a traditional Gujarati thali (all you can eat veg style) at a sort of Sturbridge village Gujarat style village recreation place. A full day. Subsequent days had me driving to the Sri Narayan temple to see a kind of Hindu bakhti meets Disneyworld display that is kind of beyond description, though I should note that the puppet/robots that sang traditional bhajans did kind of remind me of Chuck-e-Cheese. Also saw a beautiful Jain temple, a cool step well and sundy other Ahmedabad sights,a s well as more tasty meals prepared by Nimishbhai's lovely wife Nipti (he also lives with his mother and grandmother). Ahmedabad is a big, thriving city which Nimish knows well - he was raised there and is a thriving businessman in the trucking industry. He showed me the drastic changes from the old city, with its narrow alleys to houses piled high (we even toured the house where Abhi's father grew up), to the bustling shopping districts, to the suburban sprawl replete with multiplexes and shopping malls. Kind of a trip, especially if you recall that even in suburbia (or whatever it is) there are still cows wandering the streets. I can't really do justice to any of the crazy confluences and contradictions, but Nimishbhai certainly gave me the grand tour, so if it can't come out in words that feel inadequate, the impressions are at least stuck somewhere in my head. My host even got me a bus ticket to Mt. Abu, my next destination, a hill station famous for its Jain temples, which I will attempt to describe ta some point in the very near future.
