yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Amdavad Thanks are due to Apurva Bahadur for sharing the stunning glimpses of Amdavad and to friends for accompanying for the food trips. Sidi Sayyed Ni Jali – a very unassuming but confident looking structure - stood at a busy junction. As I put in time looking with awe at its skilled artisanship and caressing its - rough with age – walls I wondered whether it was less than adequately maintained or just adequately used to enable it to be standing thus, more than 400 years after it was constructed. Just across the road stood The House of MG . The structure has been beautifully restored and besides the famed lodging its restaurants too are well known. I went to its recently initiated Textile Gallery which showcases images and textiles of different regions of Gujarat - from Patolas to Ajrakhs. The Gallery’s two rooms are the most exquisitely coloured ones I have been to in recent times. On the same floor stands the elegant Heritage Bookstore. It stocks books on textiles and ...

The 10 th floor window offered a Dickensque view along the river. To the left a series of yellow lights reflected in the ‘full just till the need’ river and the clean and empty path along side. To the right lay darkness of an unmanaged river – as if somewhere far, very far. I was staring at the barrage on Sabarmati in Amdavad on an early winter morning. It was the River Front that lay to the left; a place the city and state prides on and which has hosted heads of states. Michael Snyder in his article ‘The Wealth of Nations’ in Caravan refers to it as “ probably the most ambitious urban planning project from an Indian city in the new century ”.  Water which reflected the yellow lights came from the Narmada. Water which would well have been in Narmada or a water deficient village! Later that morning a friend called and asked “ Have you seen the biggest plumbing project of your state? ” The manner in which he put it brought forth our craving to control, to tame. There was amp...