Exploring Ahmedabad: Part I

Well just to clarify, the title reads part I because I sincerely, desperately, candidly, genuinely hope that there would be many more extensions of this in the near future…. Ah ok, being realistic, in the near future J

Round about 2 pm post a pretty screwed up exam, where even I didn't like the stories I cooked up for my teacher to evaluate, I had no idea that rest of my day was going to be so amazingly refreshing. Akriti and I had planned talked about going anywhere post exams just for the sake of getting out of this place which had kept us bounded in its restricted vicinity for the past 4 months. However the only problem was, we didn't know where to go. And like devoted pupils we reached out to Google Baba for answers. As they say, destiny has its own ways, while we were randomly searching for places to visit around Ahmedabad, the guy sitting next to us noticed our dilemma and offered to help, he being the coordinator for Heritage club of our college, and we blindly allowed him to chalk out a plan for us. When all this turned out to be so smooth, there wasn't anything stopping us as we set out on our 60 km trip in an auto-rickshaw J

Sarkhej Roza: The first place on the cards was Sarkhej Roza also known as "Ahmedabad's Acropolis", due to 20th century architect Le Corbusier's famous comparison of this mosque's design to the Acropolis of Athens. Not many tourists, a few locals and non-commercial state of this splendid piece of architecture said a lot. Seems like nobody is now interested in preserving the sufi sentiments associated with the place. The pond on the backside of the monument has lost all its charm and the dried leaves on the huge gallery indicated that no prayer had been offered there since long (or may-be that’s just my interpretation). The carving on the shedding walls and the sculptures on the “maqbara” depicted the love of Emperor Ahmad Shah for art. 

Ya, that’s about it, and please note it’s a good place to click some classic pictures ;). And of-course, I missed out on the best part. Many parts of the place banned women from entering and so many a times Akriti was stranded outside while I admired all that was mentioned above J

Adalaj StepWell: Initially the plan was to get to Sarkhej and then find out where to get a bus for Adalaj which was 25 kms from Sarkhej, but lethargy got the better of us and we decided to ask our auto wala to take care of our travel.

StepWell, as the name suggests it’s essentially a water body where you ascend into to access it. First impression of the place was… “WTF”. I apparently thought that the garden next to the monument is the star attraction. However, it was good to be proved wrong. Admiring the beauty of the figurines and the architecture of the place, we ascended into the dark side of the well, a few steps from where water stood. Something magical happened there and suddenly both I and Akriti decided to just sit by the water and absorb the silence. There was something magnetic about the aura of that place. Although I recovered from this whimsical situation pretty soon, Akriti felt some connect with the place, something to do with smell of wet soil and her experiences from her village days, so we spent quite a lot of time there, before other tourists poured in from somewhere and disturbed our reverie.

Akshardham: Next destination was Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat (there is a joke hidden there, but I guess only a few people are privy to it, so for them,J).We had both been to Akshardham in Delhi and hence had a fair idea of what to expect. However, as we entered the temple, we discovered that before you get to the main building there’s an amusement park that you have to cross. Well, that turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. The hidden child inside us jumped at the opportunity and the next moment we were on the rides having a gala time. We even had to convince a few other visitors to take the ride with us as there was a minimum requirement of 10 people for few of the rides to runJ. In a while though we did realize that may be it was just too childish of us to persuade people to take rides and we decided to save some face and called it off. 

Since the fountain show was to start in an hours’ time, we decided to kill time by just sitting on the stair in front of the temple. That is when the second magical thing of the day happened. As dusk was setting in, slowly, one after the other the lights on the Akshardham Temple and in the garden around us were lighted. It was as if, out of the darkness a strikingly marvelous monument appeared in front of us. Can’t speak for Akriti but I was awed by the moment.

Next up was the hyped fountain show and as it turned out, it wasn’t hyped for no reasons. An awesome depiction of Nachiketa’s story via projection on stream of water, well, I must say technology has redefined spiritual experience. When I first saw such a show in Universal Studios in Singapore, I wondered if we could ever have such a quality thing in India as well, and today I felt pretty ashamed at my ignorance of the fact that this show which was as good as the one in Universal Studios was started before that one. Yes, India had led the way here.

Other than the awesome places we visited, the travel (specially the auto-rickshaw factor) was equally good. It felt good to not being bound to a timetable. To sum up the fantastic day was a delicious biryani at Sandwich Works, with an icing on the cake being the fact that I made in time for the final overs of India-Australia match too.

Before I close, this, I must thank Akriti for the push, or else I would have missed out on a very beautiful day of my lifeJ. Hope you guys too had a good time living these places via this description.

Cheers