Kathakaar of Gujarat

Winter Gaiety in Gujarat

2008-12-18T13:00:00.003+05:30

Winter in India is a time of great celebration, gaiety, meeting of people and festivals abound through out the country. Gujarat is no exception, a variety of reasons some reaching back to antiquity while others to modern finance contribute to ever so many celebrations taking place. The state of Gujarat with its cosmopolitan image and atmosphere generated though years of trade and commerce is an amalgamated, mix of a variety of different people each with their celebratory festivals enmeshing within each other. It is interesting that this state has always celebrated every festival with the same amount of energy and gusto regardless of differences arising out of minor infractions.

Winter here also makes for the perfect atmosphere, a time of holidays, a period of gathering, a meeting of families, a seeming portion of time when people can rise above their mundane daily grind and spend quality lives with children, friends and try to get away from it all even for a short while. Some would prefer to spend this sequential timeline just flat-lining or remodulating the strings that hold them hemmed in, and others turn visits into parties and celebrations.

There is always a select group of the adventurous and the intrepid traveler, traveling for the sheer pleasure of not only engulfing exotically unknown places off the beaten track but would definitely like to know more such weekend extravagances to disappear from the hustle bustle and polluted mind wrenching existence generated by an urban conglomerate. The ideal climatic conditions during this period all over the state as well as a riot of color and form also instigate the tourist season giving way to a lot of foreigners as tourists, backpackers, travelers, business associates and the like. Migrating along with the flocks of migratory birds and other flora and fauna which escalate the beauty of the state. As most of these and the domesticated travelers try and follow the time and tested formula of tourist locations, be it wild life, natural beauty, pilgrimage spots or resorts each one more identical than the rest offering the same fare through a gamut, peoplitic history.

Gujarat’s sixteen hundred kilometers of coastline apart from the time and tested places offer the most amazingly varied and surrealistically divine blends of coastline. With barber pole lighthouses to guide the way while seemingly keeping the monsters of the sea at bay. Bhavanagar and the coastline around it astounds the senses creating an other worldly experience. Some of the beaches around the district are Goga, Gopnath, Timba, Makrand, Meklan, Zanzaner etc each having their own quaint historical lineage and stories surrounding their existence. Jafrabad where the sun rises and sets in the ocean, Una and Ahmedpur Mandvi where the lions of Gir once ruled supreme and now are at the edge of the Gir wildlife sanctuary bordering Diu and having wonderfully pristine beaches. The entire coastline of Kutch is a confluence of reefs and coral islands strands of Saragossa floating in tandem with a psychedelic mixture of coral, colors, sea life myriad creatures all co-exiting in a delicate eco system some of which forms the Pirotan marine national park. The scrub desert of Kutch meets the sandy beaches of the ocean; the Vijay Vilas Palace at Mandvi with its excellent cuisine and facilities is excellent for a restful enjoyment. Pilgrimage centers of various religious uses also abound the coast, each having their own celebratory melas, welcoming festivals and are a short visit away fro the urban pilgrim to cleanse himself.

For the nature enthusiast there are a variety of sanctuaries and nature parks with intricacies of local and migratory flora and fauna. Some of the visitable sites around are the Gir National Park, Velvadar, Polo, Gangad, Taranga, Vansda, Dang and Saputara and places like the Rann for exotic localized flora and fauna not found any where else in the world.

Unbeknownst and as some would selfishly say thankfully Gujarat itself has so many such wild, untraversed areas to experience and discover. So much exists within simply hours out of this urban sprawl we call Ahmedabad. Gujarat, with its convolutedly complacent yet colorfully rightues ever-changing topography, people, an amalgamation of cultures and all that the word indicates makes this a veritable paradise of discovery in sighting the spirit of adventure, edutainment and pleasure.

Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

Autumn Festivals and Revelry in Gujarat

2008-12-10T12:54:00.000+05:30

A festival is a celebration, a co-mingling of people sharing an expression of culture and upholding a tradition. A festival then is a series of activities linking religion, eulogizing agrarian bounty, the performing arts, an area to display traditional arts and crafts, the buying and selling of local produce, cementing ties between various communities through marriage and trade and in the modern context, a tapestry of the vibrancy that makes Gujarat hosting within its gamut a series of seminars, shows, discussions and workshops along with other audience participating involvements.

There was a time when even the simplest of cuisines, the ubiquitous ‘ gol gappa’ achieved the status of a gourmet item with a variety of flavors, condiments, sauces and the underlying connectivity between the basic ingredients. ‘Gol gappa’, patasha’, ‘puchka’, ‘pani puri’, so many names to tantalize the taste buds and so much a part of this country’s heritage that an entire mela developed around it in Ahmedabad. The area just outside sarangpur gate used to became a conglomerate of galas, larries, rekdis and ever so many people sampling the joys of the puri with flavored water trickling down lip smacking chins. A wonderfully novel way of welcoming dev Diwali, the legendary celebration of Lord Vishnu’s return to Vaikunth.

‘Symbolically smashing the head of the hard/puffed puri, stuffing it with the spoils of battle and eating it with a flourish’. That is one of the morbid explanations hovering around a festival dedicated to the celebration of food, which the average Ahmedabadi seems so enamored about.

This is just a meandering path down certain well known fairs and melas. Every village, every community has their own variations of festivals, most so localized that they have never flowered beyond their village set up, replete with localized rituals and sustained year after year by the local community owing allegiance to their own aspect of music, ritual, dance, color, and form. Most community rural festivals honor an aspect of the mother goddess pertinent to that particular community, its needs, requirements and geographical conditions.

Amongst melas which preserves the old while bringing in a new flavor, are urban creations of college festivals; events organized by quasi government organizations consisting of theater, dance, cuisine and the like. A similar rural design festival in its third successful year of existence is the convocation mela organized by the Kala Raksha Vidyalaya in Tunda Vandh Village; the nearest town to what once was once a patch of pristine beauty and splendor is Mandvi in Kutch. Kala Raksha Vidyalaya is a design educational institute meant for Traditional Artisans. . The vision of the Vidyalaya is to develop a new approach to design education based on existing textile traditions. One important activity is to discover, articulate and utilize the existing systems of knowledge, skills, design and innovation to working traditional artisans. The focus of the institute is on acquiring knowledge and skills that will enable artisans to use design effectively in order to successfully reach appropriate new markets, while at the same time strengthening traditional identity and instilling a sense of pride in their heritage. The design school is a unique one of its kind set up with ut most care and sensitivity. This December the third batch of artisan students will graduate at a touchingly wonderful ceremony which is a part of the annual Kala Raksha Convocation Mela.
The district of Kutch is going to be replete with a series of events, festivals, happenings; all to showcase an amalgamation of a larger celebration of the arts, crafts and culture of Kutch. Legendary, heroism and romance lend enchantment to Kutch a land of great antiquity forming the Northwestern part of Gujarat. Every year a grand festival to celebrate the uniqueness of this land is held in December and called the Rann Utsav which takes place through the length and breadth of Kutch and is partaken by a colorful variety of festivities.

While the arts and culture are being showcased through platforms of their own, along with traditional, religious and ritualistic festivals also happening all over the state; the business and industrial side of Gujarat is not relegated to a corner but is also eulogized through Trade Fairs, seminars, exhibitions, and expositions so that people get a chance to interact with new products and industries and management get an introduction to Gujarat. One such happening fair in the coming week is the Engineering Expo, Ahmedabad!

Published:Ahmedabad Mirror

Festive Gujarat

2008-12-03T12:52:00.000+05:30

Gujarat, a fascinatingly, varied, intermingled topographical landscape with villages and cities in a magnificent splendor of an amalgamation of ancient and modern architecture, mirroring the culturally diverse people comprising eras of historical incursions developments and the assimilation of color, form and the gradual settlement of various communities and cultures creating a potpourri over the years of tolerance and mutual respect. Gujarat is a richly colorful tapestry unfolding its ritualistic tradition through beliefs, styles, customs and showcasing the same in a myriad series of fairs and festivals rooted in religion, commemorating mythological lineages, honoring legendary events and the plays and prejudices of demi-gods, dealing in a variety of trade practices taking place in magnificently ornamented manifestations of ‘suks’ offering every kind of delight and entertainment, forming meeting grounds for the semi nomadic communities to cement family ties through trade links and marriages and lastly a grandly eulogized celebration of changing facades in a lunar calendar thus linking an agrarian economy together whilst paying homage to nature and marking subtly the impact of changes in climatic behavior over the landscape and a way of life affecting a yellow brick road of ancient trade routes, amidst gatherings at ‘vavs’ and oasis, time spent in the telling of tales, partaking of information, singing and dancing in a methodology of unwinding after an arduous day of travel, trade and commerce.

Through a gamut of convoluted tradition, Gujarat had a history of almost 1500 fairs and over 2000 festivals in a given year. Due to a variety of reasons, while some of them have gradually vanished into the theoretical annals of folklore and traditions, others eulogizing modernity and the changing climes have begun to spring up as replacements to the old. While religion and ritual is still the driving force, other factors include showcasing business and trade, products and implements, handicrafts and handlooms and of course fun, frolic, merry making, shopping, gossiping and the weaving of tales and the melas of today, mainly promoted by the government and through the generosity of private grants all to offer the discerning tourist a kaleidoscopic pattern of the social and cultural milieu that is Gujarat.

Diwali marks the beginning of a gamut of fairs and festivals entwined through the length and breadth of the region. Due to the Agrarian reasons defining the origins of these festivals it is also a mode of the end and the beginnings of a new cycle. Some festivals linking days in a lunar calendar are sharad purnima , this takes places on the full moon night of the Sharad Maas, and is an ancient celebration harking back to River Valley Civilizations and marks the end of the monsoon and the advent of winter. Garba and other folk songs enliven celebrations taking place all over the state. A traditional meal of dudh- poha (milk- dry rice flakes) is offered as a ritual celebration of the event. As a contrast to this on Kartik Purnima, is held one of the largest cattle fairs in the region of Ahmedabad. This is held on the night of the full moon at Vautha village approximately sixty kilometers from Ahmedabad at the sacred confluence of seven rivers. The celebrations are marked by the worship of the footprints of Karthik Swami who is supposed to have lived and preached there. Vautha’s unique distinction being the largest donkey fair patronized by select communities who trade and deal in the animals. Not only are the drays bought and sold but are bedecked in finery, beauty and each owner takes an inane pride in showing off his animal. The just concluded fair in Vautha, a fortnight ago marked a record sale of a stud donkey at Rupees eighteen thousand. Thus festivals abound and colorfully unfold weaving their way through a topographically exciting landscape of culturally diverse people that makes up the state of Gujarat!!

Published:Ahmedabad Mirror

Diwali: Stories within Stories

2008-11-21T20:06:00.002+05:30

Kaleidoscopic patterns mirroring celestial cities in the sky, twinkling starlight overshadowed by patinas of bejeweled colors thrown across, akin to restless celestial beings playing games of light in the skies. Echoing chrysanthemums and varied patterns of floral hues casting an afterglow in the eyes of the night. This is the nocturnal sky of festivity bearing a pale mirror to the beauteously bejeweled wonder that the city below has turned into, almost like an ecstatic bride in all her finery out to celebrate the return of her lord. The festival is Diwali, and the warmth of diyas herald a year of sparkled wishes running true. The city looks entrancingly beautiful with garlanded festoons of twinkling lights, the myriad dance of diyas, asopalav buntings and torans of marigold while children and adults, childlike, delight themselves with exotic displays of fire works.

The early baths and ablutions, the purification of oneself, the feasts and invitations to friends during the day and finally the night with its illuminations and pyrotechnics are a hallowed tradition year upon year. In the pan-Indian context, ensconced within the traditions of a pastoral society, customs and beliefs surrounding rituals braided within a festival, Diwali too is interwoven with myths and legends congregated through the mists of time. As with all Indian ritual celebrations and age old traditions, Diwali too has a deeper connection between us and the natural order of things. Preen away the ritual of myths and legend from any Indian festival and what remains is a flowering connectivity with nature, the environment and a deep rooted ecologically sustainable belief arising out of a collective experience nurtured in an Agrarian society.

Diwali is a major festival whose celebration reverberates through the entire subcontinent. Tracing its origins to an Agrarian society, it is essentially a harvest exuberance personifying the last harvest day of the kharif crop and the birth of a fresh cycle. According to the lunar calendar, it is the end of the month of Ashvin and the beginning of Kartik. In every Agrarian society, the end of a harvest season also signified prosperity and with it came a linkage to wealth and therefore a ritual obeisance to the goddess of wealth.

Diwali or Deepawali is known as a festival of lights and a celebration of the essence of life wherein each day has a deeply ritualistic significance woven into a span of roughly five days, the first of which is colloquially known as Agyaras complying to the tenets of the lunar calendar, wherein the month of Ashwin maas melds into the emergence of Kartik.

The end of a harvest also meant business interactions as the crop was traded for goods and services which was symbolically celebrated as Wagh Baras , in actuality a clearing of debts and a closure of account ledgers initiating a fresh begining coinciding with the new season, it is also a symbolic period of rest for the kalam. This day is also known as Govatsadwadeshi, a ritual worship of a cow and calf harking back to Rig vedic principles. This day also finds its way into tribal custom in the form of a dance ritual.

Wagh Baras precedes the symbolically significant rituals of Dhanteras, the thirteenth day falling on the second half of the lunar month, also termed as Dhanatrayodashi wherein dhan translates as wealth gained through healthy living therefore a worship of health as wealth. Modern ramifications have gilded these beliefs into a Midas touch of buying the yellow metal gold as a symbolic celebration of luck, wealth and prosperity. Earlier practices called for the acquiring of utensils made from natural elements. This Midas like allusion to gold is interpretations garnered from the legend of churning the celestial ocean.

Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

2008-11-20T20:13:00.001+05:30

Tales of celestial interactions with humanity and their anecdotes of an ecologically sustainable link with the earth that we inhabit makes Diwali a festival of celebration while instilling a deep rooted respect for the bounties the earth has to offer.

Narakachatureshi as per another legend also signifies the epic victory over the asur Narak engineered by Krishna through his consort Satyabhama thus circumventing a boon granting the demon enormous power.

Let us harken back to the legendary churning of the primordial ocean. Gujarat does claim a mythical link with the process as the carapace of Vasuki, the tectonic tortoise is according to local folk lore the land of Kachchh, hence the name. The churning of the ocean and its entwined tales form a gamut of symphonies by themselves. Dhanteras, prosperity, health and the origins of Ayurveda are a part of the bounty brought forth through the churning. According to legend, amongst the demi-gods and personifications that emerged rose Dhanvantri , holding aloft a chalice of Amrit, the elixir of perfect health therefore confused with the necter of immortality. As Ayurveda is a system of naturally induced herbal medication, most metals cause an adverse reaction due to its delicate decoctions with the exceptions of certain rare elements such as gold to store the Amrit in. This belief over the years convened into a symbolic purchase of gold in leu of the grail of Amrit.

In this is where is woven stories of myth with Vaasuki the lord of the Nagas(snakes) as the rope entwined around a mountain as a pestle balanced on the shelf of the primordial tortoise. Pivotally penduluming a churning operation between the devs and the asuras in an effort to jointly claim the bounties of a newly formed multiverse. Folk myth attributes the region of Kutch as the carapace of the celestial tortoise and hence its name. During the churning among the many emerging bounties came an aspect of Vishnu, the god of Ayurved, Dhanvantri, the forearmed one holding a loft a chalice of amrit, the absolute nectar of immortality both physical and spiritual. Thus Dhanteras is a salutation to the god of Ayurved, Dhanvantri. Some beliefs veer towards the worship of health while others to the purchase of wealth.

We thus come through convoluted twists and turns traversing valleys and rivulets of the collective human myth to the central mote in the eye of the festival vortex; Deepavali, the return of the lord Rama to Ayodhya, a festival of lights and magic and a celebration of all that is bright and good welcoming a profoundly prosperous future. The kingdom of Ayodhya bedecked herself as a virgin bride in all finery to welcome back Lord Ram after his return form exile and his triumphant battle over Ravan. Another legend deals with the sun of King Hemraaj whose son was destined to meet his death on his sixteenth birthday. The son’s wife in order to prevent this incident had the entire city lit up with lamps, colors, flowers and unguents. The royal be chamber was sealed with piles of precious gold, late at night when Yama, the god of death arrived to claim the young prince’s soul so bedazzled was he by this tremendous splendor of wealth and the devotion of the wife that he let the prince live. This then is another local myth woven within the lights and festivities of Diwali.

A dazzling display of sparkled festivity, a closure of the old and a fragrance of the new, a collective surge of positive energy coursing through a city revitalized in a cacophony of colours, sounds and a confluence of lights weaving a rhythm of renewed hope.
Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

2008-11-19T20:14:00.000+05:30

Diwali, a festival so our very own with myriad people across the pan Indian continent eulogizing in unison a series of rituals and celebrations with niches of individuality woven in. childhood memories assail the senses, foods and mithais, of every form, hues and content, newly stitched wardrobes, mirroring polished gleaming utensils, neatly arrayed on freshly plastered walls; the aroma of food blending with the acrid smoke of an ostentously displayed fire cracker, light, sparkle and magical bonanzas accompanied by a cacophony of sounds and noise to decibels beyond. Sensuously flowing luminousness dropped from the heavens like a net engulfing and illuminating a city in splendor. Stories within stories, legends surrounding myths, the most universal of them being associated with the return of Lord Ram to Ayodhya after his consort Sita’s rescue and the end of his exile. There is the other legend of a great king Mahabali Chakravarthi. Due to a boon granted by Brahma he achieved invincibility over the three domains of the earth, heavens and the nether regions. His domination made Indra and other demi gods seek solace from Vishnu as Mahabali exerted control over all and nothing short of Ragnarok or Kralizec would change the tides favorably and bring succor to the ‘oppressed’.

Vishnu promised aid and came forth in a manifestation of a Brahmin, a man of stunted growth, a person undersized and insignificant therefore known as Vamana. Bali the king was known for his magnanimity towards Brahmins and Vaman presented himself at the court, impressed the king with his discourse and asked for three steps as dakshina. Vaman’s single step covered the earth, the other air. Though by now knowing the outcome, Bali offered his own head to place the third step on, Vishnu’s final step exiled the king to the nether regions over which he was granted dominion and freedom was restored elsewhere. Consequently Vishnu, in the guise of a Brahmin by the very act of placing his foot automatically absolved Bali of all his sins and it is that elevation to greatness which is celebrated as the festival of lights.

An older legend within the Skandapuran, tells of twentyone days spent in austerity by the mother goddess beginning of ashtami of shuklapaksha which nominally falls on the eighth day of Navratri. At the end of the cycle, Shakti joined with Shiv finally creating Ardhanarishwar, the complete being. Traditionally even today, there is a symbolic fast maintained for these 21 days known as ‘kedar vrat’ and the day of Diwali is the celebration of its completion. Diwali day is celebrated in Eastern India through Kali Puja.
The day after Diwali celebrated as Bhai Duj or a confirmation of the bond between a brother and sister. This acknowledged ritual of protective ambience predates Rakshabandhan. The mists of the Bhai Dujian legend relate to an important anecdote woven within the story of the reunion of Lord Yama and his sister Yamuna, hence forth celebrated as a meeting of siblings ascertaining their mutual love and bond.

As Diwali marks a change in the Agrarian cycle based on the lunar calendar wherein the first day of Kartik maas is celebrated as bestu varsh or the new year. Gaiety and cacophony with homes bedecked in marigold and asopalav, rangolis unfolded, anew to welcome in prosperity and the goddess Lakshmi. An old pagan ritual of breaking ceremoniously a chink of salt called sabraas marks the beginning of this new day.

The fifth day in the calendar of events is considered the most auspicious for the beginnings of trade and business activities and therefore most muhurats takes place on this day of laabh pacham. This cycle of festivities that is Diwali culminates on the fifteen day of Kartik Maas, know as Dev Diwali in recognition of the return of Vishnu to Vaikunth after reading the earth of her burden.

Diwali heralds the beginning of a cycle of festivals celebrated through variety of fairs, rituals, religious pilgrimages and the like.. The city of Ahmedabad is also celebrating its heritage week eulogizing a culture dating back to almost six hundred years of uninterrupted history.

Navratri, Unifying Force of Existence

2008-10-22T12:37:00.000+05:30

Navratri, nine nights and the tenth, a culmination, an explosive amalgamation of color, form, festivity, the turning of night into day, the vanquishing of the forces of darkness and the ascendant of the absolute powers of the earth mother, Gaea, the mother Goddess, a celebratory interpretation of a variety of myths and legends of yore juxtaposed with modern mating rituals, urban angst, sponsored market driven advertising coupled with the ostentatious display of wealth, power, rhythm and blues.

The festival of Garba, culminating in Dussehra, ever so many intertwining folk myths, their apparently diverse rivulets eventually melding into the embryonic folds of the mother Goddess, a single riveting image of sustenance, power and indisputably motherhood, a symbolic celebration of the power of good over evil, the colorfully explosive flowering of the all encompassing magic circle, an abstract rendering of fertility, womanhood and the rekindled romance of myths. Interlinking stories coalsing within nine nights of mystically cathartic abandon. Shiv/Shakti; yin and yang, the synchronized balance between the apparently opposing forces, each a necessary complement to the other. The aspects of good and evil, their unending battle till Armageddon is actually an European imposition as Indian philosophy defines the forces in nature as creative partners in a ballet of a contigineous improvisational dance of the cosmos, where every ‘Rig Vedic’ molecule holds the propensities of universal creation wafting through chance.

What originally began as a confirmation of the earth mother and fertility, later ushered in Dussehra and the phoenix like arson of effigies eulogizing the victory of Ram over Ravana, not as components of good and evil but elements of duality in creation. The nine day festival of ‘Navratri’ is best known by the folk dance of ‘Garba’ in all its myriad traditional variations, mutating into urbanized modern influences leading to interpretations from the sublime to the grotesque with music, serene and relevant jarring into the absolute bizarre; a fashion parade of urban chic in a gross imitation of subduadly cultured textiled tradition with each color and pattern having a relevance within the scheme of ritual. the ‘Garba’ or ‘Garbh’ a symbolic manifestation of the womb, a culmination of womanhood, surrounded by the dance of a magic circle with its heartbeat rhythms of musical notations, a dance form at once hypnotic, enduring and protectively all encompassing. The ‘Garba’ is a ceremonial dance to the Goddess, in effect a stylized mirror image of a multi-universal dance of creation. Through its rendering, it pays homage to the very birthing of the universe, thus becoming one of the extensions of various rituals enacted in honor of the mother Goddess.

The earth mother, ‘Devi’ or ‘Shakti’, in Indian socio-religious psyche is encountered in numerous guises and forms enabling her to fulfill niche needs in a society, which venerated nature in all her supernatural forms. The earth mother was considered the womb of all life and had a direct link with all the flora and fauna of different regions and climes leading to an approximate 1008 manifold incarnations spread over the length and breadth of Hinduism.

The most popular and enduring myth is that of ‘Mahisasura Mardini’, an aspect of Durga, Parvati, Shakti, the mother Goddess, whose folk myth is the mainstay of the nine days festival of Navratri. At a point in cosmic time, ‘Mahisasura’ was granted power unlimited by ‘Brahma’. Using this divine boon, he vanquished the ‘Devas’ and established his supremacy over the three planes. The ‘Devas’ appealed to ‘Shiva’, who endowed ‘Durga’ with the essence of 33crore Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu pantheon. It was thus ‘Durga’, as ‘Mahisasura Mardini’ in an epic battle lasting nine days that vanquished the usurper and re-established the balance of the cosmos.

Ever so many myths, ever so many tales, so much of happiness, dance, revelry and the celebration of life cutting across barriers of geographical, social, economic and cultural ethos.

Published:Ahmedabad Mirror

2008-10-21T12:45:00.000+05:30

The Mother Goddess, Devi, Shakti in the Hindu pantheon is the symbolic Earth Mother, the womb from which springs all of nature in her beatific bounty. The all encompassing Mother Goddess in her myriad guises, roles, interpretations and manifestations, occupying niches of needs and desires is embedded deep within the Indian psyche. Fables and legends grew and spread carried by wandering communities through illustrative and musical modes of communication, thus transgressing the often confusing babel of geographically dispersed dialects and languages. Thus the Hindu pantheon has always been image oriented with all the foibles and quirks of early settlers woven into the fabric of its behavioral characteristics. It was much easier for those communities to identify with a being or beings akin to them, but who in times of crisis would rise above baser instincts and epically carry forward the story to victory, thus maintaining the power of the legend.

Entwined in cultural folk myths and legends, the Mother Goddess or Shakti is the divine power that manifests, sustains and transforms the universe, the one unifying force of existence. She is the embodiment of creative energy and is conceived as the Universal Mother. Early origins, gleaned from Puranic literature, have been conceiving her in myth forms, verses, metaphors and tales, reinventing her varied manifestations. Folk art traditions have been envisaging her in extensive forms. In the folk enchantment of music, the primordial sound, ‘nad brahma’, or the celestial clash of light at the birthing of the universe is attributed to her and her variable chants reverbing across the multi-verse. Later religious customs and ritual practices have perceived the goddess through various conventions and gradually applicable needs.

Vedic cultures contemplated the cosmic world as a co relation of the male and female force, each in balance exerting a covertly sobering factor over the other. Early civilizations worshipped the natural forces of the sun, fire, and wind and denoted them as male. This male force or ‘purusha’ was the main principle progenitor of generative power but held dormant by a flamboyantly volatile feminine principle symbolized through the forces of Earth and water. This feminine force also termed ‘Prakriti’, then is the wellspring for the manifestation of power or ‘Shakti’

Etymologically interpreted, the word ‘Shakti’ suggests energy and has its roots within the Sanskrit language. The ‘Svetasvatara’ Upanishad defines Shakti as the supreme power, denoting strength, effort, capacity or energy. She is divinity in the feminine form or the active counterpart of a male deity personified in later patriarchal societies as his wife or consort. She is then ‘Adi Shakti’, the unique energy source of creation. She is the initiating embodiment of the cosmic dance of Shiv and Shakti and the resultant birthing of the universe in all its multitudinous variations strung across a time space continuum. Shiv and Shakti, yin and yang ,necessary aspects facilitating the energy of creation. Shakti, gentle and protective on one hand or fierce and destructive on the other and therein lie the variable manifested images of Devi, the mother goddess.

Today, the mother goddess in her myriad incarnations, is revered across the sub- continent and beyond, achieving a form and purpose born out of need and social factors. Her divine presence is a part of India’s richly diverse cultural and religious heritage.

Primitive man has always been aware of the ecological balance of nature and the worship of the Mother Goddess automatically elevated nature to a divine position. A woman was also accorded a superior position in older societies. She not only symbolized life but was also a creator of life. Primitive tribal societies or family groups centered around her. Her maternal attributes were thought to be endowed with generative powers and so became life giving symbols. In earlier phases of social evolution, it was this maternal and procreative power that formed the focal point of religion. This matriarchal principle, in the course of time became personified as the Mother Goddess.

Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

Okha, the legendary scape of Krishna's empire of Dwarka

2008-10-01T10:34:00.001+05:30

The morning rays of the sun glint across the weaving ocean surface, motes dancing in tune with the liquidity of music. Exposed sandbanks beckon you to walk towards mysteries exposed under receding tides. For this is Okha, the legendary scape of Krishna’s empire of Dwarka, historical port of repute. Legends speak of old Gods fishing from the rocks on the shore and one of them cast his golden net with such force that it encircled the sun. Thinking that he had ensnared a great glowing fish, he hauled it almost to shore before realizing his error and setting it free. The sun was so enamored by the beauty of the coast line thereabouts that since then it has followed the same path every morning sailing into the sky.

After tucking into a colonially decadent repast, courtesy Mohan bhai and the European guest house, the desire to explore is kindled. Mohan bhai’s rickshaw is a waiting to escort us onwards to the jetty. Winding through lanes flanked by warehouses, where stevedores are busy unloading varieties of exciting oceanic bounties, shrimps, prawns, large and larger scaled lobsters, there pinchers still weaving feebly through the air, crabs of iridescent blue, green and mottled grey and an ostentatious variety of fish, building blocks slabs of ice and the staccato of nails hammered into wood planks of packing crates; all in an atmosphere of slick, salt, industriousness and spray.

The only jarring element is in this otherwise pristine serious of activities is a veneer of black soot which seems to cloyingly cling to every surface, a grim reminder of the destructive abilities of humanity’s penchant for wanton environmental degradation for the sake of apparent urban luxury maintenance. This blot in paradise is coal dust blow tither at the whims of the winds sooting every surface with the silky black of carbon offal, off times settling on pools and eddies within coral formations wreaking ecological damage whose ramifications are felt through the visible extinction of a variety of exotic species within the coral ecosystem whose dire implications upon the food chain are yet to be calculated. The source of this Russian dice roulette lies at the singular port where tons of the ubiquitous carbon substance is unloaded to service the industrial conglomerates of Mithapur. As the vast ocean acts as a purifying lung, the overall pollution situation is still not as detrimental as it sounds.

Spear heading a drive to spread awareness amongst the local populace regarding their ecological heritage is the panchjanya pariavaran trust, trust initiated by Hembha Vadher of bet. Legends state panchajanya as the conch whose tenor tones shattered the battle field of Kurukshetra, once was abundantly found all along this coast line. This trust aims to proactively effect conservation, awareness through various activities for the rich marine ecosystem in the Gulf of Kutch. A permanent camp site at Hanuman point, overlooking the placid Balapar bay on the island of bet, the center offers a base from where research and studies of the delicate filigreed marine coral ecosystem can take place. For amateurs, enthusiasts and voyeurs of the off beat, there is on offer a rustic campsite on the beach, bathing, sailing, a pin-pointingly brilliant night sky, migratory birds and their nesting sites and the enigmatically wondrous world of corals, teaming with an intensity of liquid ballet of life. The Okha jetty jostles with pilgrims bound for the Krishna temple at bet. Ferries criss-cross over the cacophony of cymbals, bells, chants and the chug-a-chug of motor engines with oranges and yellows dominating the textile colour spectrum. Through the colour of human festivity we are rescued by Ghanshyam Vadher, Hem bha’s son and a person with a passionate knowledge febrile undersea ecosystem that surrounds bet.

After paying due respect to the lord of the temple amidst much conch blowing we are whisked off away from the quaint hamlet to serene strands of beach and set free to gingerly navigate the most grotesquely marvelous floor scape of coral at low tide, a world of flowey plants, green tinged, the lights playing symphonic shafts of blue, sand basted and water worn rock formation of city states in the neather sea, anemones, urchins, crustaceans and coelentetra with their cilia undulating to a poseidonic music of the speheres, octopii tinting the algaed blue with the most subtle of the phoenecian purple as fish dart through this language of surreality on mission of their own devising. Corals and limestone engravings of the most multi tudinous hues and forms; crystalline configurations woven on iridescent beds of stone, patterned with gardens of vivid lichens and moss with wraithlike water navigating through gateways, nooks and psychedelic crannies. Flora and fauna in use as yet unimagined; seven tones of music textured through a pearly pink, a nacreous delicate blue, a lambent saffron, an emerald of the tropics, a deathly white and a ghostly amethyst and lastly the silver glinting off fish as they leap across the moon.

Dolphins frolic in play as the sun attempts to set on this seeming alien landscape, it setting rays initiating visual variations in this most amazing exposition of nature’s masterpiece.

History of Cotton Trade in Ahmedabad

2008-09-03T10:39:00.002+05:30

Ahmedabad, a city entwined through a legacy of textiles, an industry, a way of life that fueled growth through the early part of the twentieth century. The sometimes ornate, crowned floral patterns, marvels in architectural form, mills stacks, towers defining the aerials of the textile industry standing sentinel like in a jigsaw of connecting dots guarding belching alters of flame and energy.

Machinery and modernization spread form Bombay to Ahmedabad and Surat during the presidency years. Thus modernity came into force in conjunction with traditional forms and practices, each dovetailing within the other. This rapid expansion into the industrial era led to an ever-growing demand for cotton in a feeding frenzy of want and desire. This led to the Bombay Presidency taking a keen interest in the growing and trading of cotton through out the region under its control.

By the 1930s, India was the second largest cotton producing nation in the world after the United States. The Indian Institute of Agriculture’s report of 1935 lists India’s raw cotton exports as 12,553 thousand centals( a cental was usually equal to about a 100 pounds), apart from an equivalent domestic consumption. Thus Indian production had a large bearing on the fluctuating trade in International cotton. The main Indian trading centers of that period were Karachi and Bombay with Ahmedabad at the central nexus of the spidery web.

The East India cotton association was founded in 1922 controlling raw cotton trade with industrialists and prominent growers as members of the board. Indian cotton was known from the area of origin and accordingly named. Brisk trade took place in the markets of Bombay and Ahmedabad on a day to day clearance based on the delivery period. Surprisingly, Bharuch controlled a large part of the market and functioned as the price barometer. The prices of all other styles followed Bharuch or the Broach Bazaar as it was wont to be called then. The East India Cotton Association issued periodical statistics regarding cotton production.

The early twentieth century also saw the emergence of cotton strains developed keeping in mind soil conditions, rainfall patterns, topographical and social anthropological needs. The agricultural Institute published a study on soil conditions commissioned by the cotton trade, dividing the alluvial deposits in the North and South of Gujarat. The Northern tracts were called ‘Goradu’ and consisted of deposits brought down by the Sabarmati and Mahi. While the Southern tract, watered by the Narmada and Tapi was known as Kali. Deep alluvial deposits veined in by salt and sand egress around Ahmedabad made it admirably suited for the cultivation of closed bolled cotton called Waghad.

The Bombay department of agriculture was actively involved in developing suitable strains of cotton for the Kali or black soil tract of the Southern region. Navsari cotton was genetically modified and reintroduced in the regions around Surat to cotton growers as 1027ALF. This strain then was considered the finest of staple cotton capable of spinning between 34-40 counts of yarn. Strange varieties of flux in the markets also affected the quality and type of cotton production along with the constantly variable climatic conditions having an affect on the human socio political sensex.

Surprisingly by the mid 1930s that barometer of the national price index the Broach variety was more or less extinct. The gazette report of that period states that ‘the Nerbudda- Mahi zone which formerly used to grow the Broach variety had taken to growing an inferior short stapled but high ginning variant called ghoghari’. The ghoghari though could spin only 16 count of yarn. A wilt resistant strain capable of spinning upto 40 counts known as BD8 was evolved from the Bharuch desi cotton by the agricultural institute of Bombay for reintroduction into that region.

Thus the textile industry not only added impetus to urban growth but also wielded an active influence on the rural surroundings and emerging trade markets, further encompassing other materials and goods leading to an insidious command over the prosperity of the region.

Published:Ahmedabad Mirror

Ahmedabad a Living Montage of Historical Evidences

2008-08-20T10:49:00.000+05:30

The city of Ahmedabad is distinguished for its architectural and textile heritage which is in a stage of continuous evolutionary change, undergoing metamorphosis from the banal to the loud and rampant, from sustainably functional and user-friendly to the borders of grotesque and environmentally insane; organically induced natural shades to the carcinogenic neon of shocking pink. A true cacophony of styles, shapes, grandeur, history and waste in a chequerboard patina appliquéd over a sprawling fabric. So grew this city, a living montage of historical evidences, encompassing, paramecium like surrounding territories, emerging into living, growing, seething masses of cultural, social and economically diverse hire of humanity.

As the presence of the British raaj began to benignly grow all pervasive and classically interfering, enforced stability and an economic upsurge gave rise to a guild enhanced trading elite. In fact, the advent of the American civil war in 1862 and the opening of the B.B.C.I.railway between 1860 and 1864 contributed to this result. Further mechanisms broadening the urban conflagration on both banks of Sabarmati have been gleaned from excerpts from Edaljee Dosabhai’s ‘History of Guzerat’ first published in 1893.

One of the first metalled roads was constructed, under British hegemony, from the port of Gogha, via Dhandhuka and Bavla to Ahmedabad, a length of 162 miles. Right after this, Sarkhej was linked to Virangam, a distance of 30 miles, its cost of construction, Rs 2, 26,000/-. The advent of the railways, notably the B.B.and C.I. opened more avenues for trade and commerce. This was followed by the Rajputana Malwa Railway in 1877 and several Kathiawar Railways set into motion by Gondal, Junagadh, Porbandar, Morbi and Bhavnagar. Privately owned tracks and carriages such as the ‘Trambak Trolley’ have entered the realm of the modern folk cultural myth. Ahmedabad meanwhile, persevered through communal upheavals, natural disasters and yes the bane of fluctuating markets. It is notable to mention here the stock market crash of 1866, ruining many a respectable family in Ahmedabad. It was only later that the Industrial Revolution in textile manufacture was ushered in by the ‘Honorable Rao Bahadur Ranchhodlal Chhotalal, CIE’ by importing mill machinery.

The most damaging flood on record during the later part of 19th century was on September 23rd, 1875. Approximately 3,800 houses fell, besides damage to other property within Ahmedabad, accounting to a loss of seven and a one half lacks of rupees. Entire villages were inundated in the area outside the city walls. The rail bridge over Sabarmati constructed at a cost of three lack rupees and the Ellis bridge, over the same river, which only five years before had cost the civil administration five lack rupees, were swept away. Ellisbridge was later rebuilt in 1892 through judicious private donations, which enabled amongst other things the relocation of the Gujarat College from Mirzapur to the western bank of the Sabarmati and the settlement of the western suburbs.

Restoration of the Fort wall was undertaken in the year 1832 from the proceeds collected through ‘Kot-tax’. The balance remaining formed the nucleus of a Municipal Fund. On the 11th of June, 1891, the water works and an elaborate drainage system was inaugurated by Lord Harris, the then Governor of Bombay and initiated by Ranchhodlal Chhotalal, the President of the Ahmedabad Municipality with a budget of eight lack rupees. Edaljee Dosabhai, from whose writings these nuggets of history are gleaned, was then the Deputy Collector and District Magistrate at Ahmedabad.

Thus spawned Ahmedabad, ever aggravating outwards in twists and turns; the fortunes of amalgamated peoples in twirling curls, vertical mill stacks running parrellel to living habitats, spewing an intermingling grey over a megalosphere of wealth and morbid industrial prosperity running tandem with age old guilds and cultural propensities.

Published:Ahmedabad Mirror

Mysteries of Pols of Ahmedabad

2008-08-13T20:55:00.004+05:30

The word ‘Pol’ conjures up an image of an old world charm and a series of innovation in sustainable architecture dovetailed into the built form. ‘Pol’ architecture is an interesting evolution in urban living space. The earliest ‘Pol’ to be incorporated was aptly christened ‘Mahurat Pol’ and was built adjacent to Manek Chowk.

These enclosures housed individual, interconnected living spaces, each growing according to the dictums imposed upon it by the twin appendages of need and space. The use of lime mortar and wood in the construction not only strengthened but also proved to be earthquake resistant due to the judicious combination of materials used. Exquisite facades inter-twining reliefed in wood illustrated the grandeur and opulence of the inhabitant. The entrance porch was of height allowing it to be parallel to carriages and carts to make for easy cartage of goods and people. Iron rings were attached to the stone base to hitch the dray animals connecting alleys and lanes, paved over by well worn flat stones, were deliberately slowed to enable a planned drainage system. In fact, the old city had a concealed drainage system which in parts is still in use. Key points had wrought iron poles serving as escapes as vents for the subterranean tunnels. Each pole was crowned with a directional arrow indicating a nether bifurcation of the tunnels, this forming a dotted map of the entire system.

The upper floors of the ‘havelis’ had overhanging balconies and windows, casting a complete shadow on the streets below, maintaining a cool atmosphere for comfortable locomotion through the ho days. Each ‘haveli’ was built on a ‘tanka’ or water reservoir. Rainwater harvested from the multi-leveled, jig sawed rooftops, brought down in a series of copper pipes, filtered through a layer of charcoal, lime and pebbles found its way to the storage tank. The tank kept the structure cool and supplied nourishing liquidity to the residents. Thick walls kept the structure cool and resilient. Secret passages and tunnels formed a maze of clandestine connectivity between living spaces. These fascinating edifices in a poetic interplay of stones and woods gave rise to a sustained employment for a variety of skilled artisans, each fulfilling a niche within the grid of urban Ahmedabad. The intricate ’jharokas’ and balconies were first exported to the adorn palatial abodes in France and England, enamored by all things colonially Indian by Sheth Huthereing in the early part of the 19th century generating a unique colonial influence in European architecture.

Due considerations and allowances were made in the urban concrete to accommodate acclimatized birds and animals within the cityscape. Deliberate holes and apertures carved into the outer facade created nesting possibilities for squirrels and birds such as sparrows and parrots. Peacocks and civets scurried and pattered on awnings and crannies nooking sloped rooftops in acrobatic manifestations of adaptivity. Central courtyards of ‘pol’ had aesthetically ornamental bird feeders in carved wood and stone with communal granaries attached offering seuraed possibilities in strewn grains. Sinewey trellises engraved in metal ‘jalis’ fronting widow openings afforded an operatic play in light and shadow. Thus ‘pol’ architecture in living spaces was a blend of functionality and aesthetic design, analogizing a marriage of need and beauty. The ‘pol’ gradually transmogrified into virtual fortresses of calm and safety as the hold of the Imperial court in Delhi weakened and skirmishes and fiefdoms arose waving banners of defiant revolt and independence in various parts of a fractured kingdom, assailed internally by ambitious and disgruntled warlords and externally by flexing colonial European powers in an elusively notorious search for spices and a controlled amalgamated assimilation of territories. The Marathas had also begun to muscle their way in through Malwa and the central provinces. Most of Gujarat was thrown into a state of anarchic disarray where connecting links were maintained through diligent commerce and trade. A situation much in vogue until the advent of the British and the restoration of semblance of colonially exploited law and order which through a subjugated colonization offered a serene platform for the regrowth of trade and commerce.

Repeated egress by Maratha marauders and other 'visigothic' elements had pretty much depleted the fortified rampant of the Ahmedabad city wall. Paucity of funds and the grind of a beurocratic British machinery did the rest. The fortified gates adorning ‘pol’ entrances were maimed and disabled by the English after the uprising of 1857. The death knell of the city wells was finally sounded in the early part of the 20th century, when the Ahmedabad Municipality under Sardar Patel authorized expansion and suburban assimilation to foster growth and create a great cityscape.

Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

Multi-faceted Potpouri of Ahmedabad City

2008-08-06T11:02:00.001+05:30

‘Bathed in blood and ashes, rose the iridescent bid of paradise, rain bowed a wing with many a hued gold.’ A ritual drenching of blood, the ultimate sacrifice and there was born something almighty and enduringly magnificent. So, rose the grand city of Ahmedabad, the jewel of Gujarat, the seat of its Sultanate; on the death by poisoning of Muzzafar Shah by his grandson, Ahmed. In 1410 AD he assumed the throne, crowning himself Sultan Ahmed Nasir-ud-din Shah. On the other suggestion of his spiritual advisor, he initiated the seeds of the multi-cultural city of Ahmedabad by laying it foundation stone in 1411 AD, almost six hundred years ago.

Ahmedabad, name emblazoned in percussioned notations , many faceted living space, interwoven though craft and guild traditions in threads of identity. A city and its ability to absocultural and economic amalgamations in its journey to growth. The snaking, cobbled alleys of Khadia to the neon, cladded interface of the S.G highway; from mortar and wood of havelis to concrete and plastic of lego monoliths; the ethnic textile playground of law garden casually blending into boutiques on C.G.Road, marginalized ghettos of industrial labor with their frothing pink canals of water to pristine bungalow edifices boing deep within the regolith to charm up water laced with fluorides; the technography of blending the Narmada with the Sabarmati to the surrender of its wayward banks to cuboid, construction extravaganzas; the orderly chaos of the eastern part to the chaotic disorder of the western; a cross-section of peoples, cultural, cuisines and climes, all of which is the jigsaw of riot and colors, animals and people, and urban myths, opium dens and sheesha bars, a contradiction of terms and values such an interesting cityscape that we, the present have inherited. For a visitor, Ahmedabad facets herself differently to different people. For the annals of construction, it is a repository of styles, from the 15th century Indo- Sarcanic to Bauhausian post modernism. Cultural beliefs via hand in hand with abstract modern thought. Traditional craft showcases itself in streets and lanes, a treasure of skills and design. Beliefs are seasoned in modern expressions leading to a pot pourri of flowering. The economic clout and diversity of this city is based on its textile industry paying homage to the title, the Manchester of India’. For students of pacisivim, Ahmedabad is the abode of Gandhi, the beaton of peace and non violence. All of these and much more make Ahmedabad the technological and cultural hub of Gujarat .

The city is an architectural diasporas of a babel of styles ad rots the sultans of yore embellished the city with monuments of dusky brown sandstone where geometric patterns of Islamic thought blended with filigree flowering of Hindu craftsmanship leading to the birth of the Indo Sarsenic in built form. These caparisoned jewels dot the bustling map of a modern city. The Jumma Masjid(1423) one of the largest mosques in India, is a sheer grandeur of space within the stifling congestion of colors that is Manek Chowk. Nearby, the twin banks of a defunct riverine tributary lie the mausoleums of Ahmed Shah and his wives, which form the nexus of a thriving textile craft and metal jewelry market. The delicately perforated stone tracery akin to an abstract tree of life adorn the mosques of Sidi Saiyad(1571) and Rani Rupamati(1439). The planned gardens, Masjid, pleasure palaces and mausoleums surround an artificial lake at the Sarkhej Roza. The remnants of the fort wall embroider the old city with its uniquely elegant gates, reliefed with carefully disguised Hindu motifs.

The Islamic penchant for orchards and gardens synthesized in Shahibaug with its ‘gheru’ and ‘chuna’ governors palace and the now extinct tracts of Amraiwadi and Ambawadi to name a few.

Later incursions by looting Marathas led to the formation of ‘pols’, a unique series of connected living spaces, protectively barricaded with the rear elevation of ‘Havelis’ forming the outer wall. By the end of the 17th century, Ahmedabad was in a sense of turmoil and anarachy. The fort walls had crumbled in places and the ‘Pols’ offered sanctuary and a pocket of calm for a prosperously wealthy city in flux.

Published:Ahmedabad Mirror

Colors of Village Nirona, Kutch

2008-07-23T19:51:00.004+05:30

Kachchh, the land which has risen out of the ocean, its people traversing the back of the celestial tortoise. So goes the folk myth regarding this land of multitudinous people with their distinctive inter-related yet different culture, craft and way of life. This culturally diverse intermingling has led to the development of a strong and a varied crafts tradition based on the precepts of utility and beauty. As Kachchh goes through a modern change signaling the growth of urban settlements the craft forms are also gradually evolving and going beyond the concepts of utility and becoming themselves objects of art. Each village is a discovery of treasure in itself with its interlinked colorfully diverse crafts people. The village of Nirona on the way to Banni is one such place. Recently while traipsing through Bhuj and Kala Raksha in Sumrasar, one decided to detour to Nirona which I had not visited in some time.

Nirona is a dusty village off the road linking Bhuj to Khawda. Over the years it has achieved a status of being termed a craft village. Nirona is blessed with having a variety of master craftsmen practicing their trade and honing it to an art form.

As one enters the village and veers left at the water tank one is greeted with this smiling aspect called Husain bhai who then proceeds to lead us vide dusty alleys to his living cum work space. Husain is a metallurgist, a traditional maker of cow bells. Iron bells enameled in copper and bronze, so many shapes and sizes, emitting melodies which are soft yet carry sonorously through the desert air. Bell making as a craft form is still practiced not only in Nirona but in Zura, Bhuj and Nakhtrana. Husain’s son, wife and daughter in law all dexterously assist the master craftsman. With the surety arising from years of experience, he takes a metal plate, using the most rudimentary of tools and bends it in a cylindrical shape dovetailing the edges. While he readies the furnace, his wife begins applying copper and bronze slivers mixed in mud paste on the metal cast of the bell. He then proceeds to bake the mud cake bell while he lovingly stokes the flames. Meanwhile the sound of the furnace is drowned out by the tympani of cascading bells in a variety of shapes and sizes which Husain’s son has brought out to show. While the three are thus at work, Husain’s daughter in law sits demurely in a corner intricately generating a tie and dye pattern on fabric. The musical crescendo signals a phoenix like birth of a new bell emerging from mud and fire.

Such a cacophony of bells, shapes and sizes, triangles and cylinders, flattened ovoid, tinkly small and large base drones; it’s a veritable tintinabulistic symphony punctuated by bell shaped xylophones. Husain bhai also fashions a folk musical instrument known as the morchang, akin to the Jews harp of Eastern Europe.

So bells are purchased and bells are rung and it is time to leave, winding ones way to the next community. These are the Vadhas, whose skill lies in coating wooden implements and toys with lacquer in a psychedelic variation of hues. This semi nomadic community harvests the lac resin from the trees, mixing it with different kinds of minerals and pigments to generate a vast array of colorful shades. These are then meticulously applied to a mixed batch of kitchen implements, toys and small utility items. The craftsmen use hand operated lathes to shape the wood, slash in indentations and the artistical application of colored lacquer in zigzag patterns defying geometric parameters.

While looking at this visual treat we were surrounded by children of all shapes and sizes who were carrying the most exquisite rag dolls wearing little trinkets. The men in the community held the magic of color creativity in their hands while the sharp, confident women exuded it through their chunky jewelry and intensely embroidered costumes.

A simple triangulation from the bell makers house to the houses of lac would bring us within the realm of Roghan. A neat hand painted sign board indicates the dwelling of Gafur bhai, the master craftsman. Roghan is a traditional textile art form involving painting on fabric. The art of Roghan originated in Syria and is practiced through Peshawar, Lahore, Sindh and Kutch. The color and paste used in Roghan painting is a gelatinous extract of safflower and castor oil blended with pigments rolled into a ball and preserved in earthen bowls of water to maintain consistency. The color making process itself is time consuming and involves great skill. A snake like sliver of color paste is rolled on to a stylus and hand applied to dyed cotton fabric making intricate patterns.

Our all too brief visit to Nirona was slowly winding its end signaling a time for us to depart. Nirona is a classic example of an ‘ideal crafts village’ wherein each community is an integral part of the whole.

Published:Ahmedabad Mirror

Fine Tuning The Urban Sprawl

2008-07-16T21:16:00.003+05:30

Ahmedabad such a tremendously interesting city of layers, wheels within wheels; intrinsically woven together in spidery bonds of its population striving through criss cross patterns on the topographical fabric that is the city; undulating, quite like the sting ray sensuously gliding across the surface of the seas, its tail end point entwined to another and yet another in the vast repertoire of anecdotes and tales regarding the extraordinary lives and contributions of the men and women in the street none of whose names appear in the annals of history, but with their zeal to make some positive changes to the flowering of this home that we call Ahmedabad.

Take the case of ever so many humble eateries along the sprawling Teen Darwaza, Karanj nexus. At any given time of the day there are a motley group of the homeless wasted, addicts and maimed, encroached upon the sidewalk spilling on to the road and waiting patiently for hand outs of left overs that ensure that these ‘derelicts’ get fed daily. As one of the dhaba owners remarked, “It gives not only satisfaction on a religio- internal level, but also a sense of oneness between them and us.”

These Samaritans are restricted to this part of the city alone. Groups of concerned citizens can be seen distributing blankets to the homeless in winter. For the younger generation Ahmedavadi service is a part of over all growth which gives an immense sense of joy and fulfillment. Dedicated students from schools and colleges regularly visit slums to teach and interact with the children there. Concerned citizens regularly give their time to organizations such as Missionary charities and old age homes where they bring cheer to the hearts of the worthies residing there.

Then again meet the common men on street corners who for years have made it a moot point to act as custodians for numerous birds at a variety of locations, religiously feeding them, non descript, staying out of the limelight and expecting none. There are also stalwarts who make it a point to feed stray dogs while the cattle roving free in the city seem to need not as they are amply provided for. So many animals adapted to survive helped along the way by a veritable battery of people bent on being good Samaritans with an underlying guilt of being the cause and usurper of the territory in the first place. Ahmedabad can be motivated or packaged to be an urban sanctuary a fascinatingly harmonious forest of cement concrete ranges, picaresque pathways of macadam, long term genetically altering atmospheric particulate matter and peppered with a smattering of trees. During Uttarayan dedicated volunteers throng nooks and crannies of this wonderful city, tending to the needs of urbanized birds.

While watching a clip on the net of world leaders at the G8 summit in Toyako Japan taking part in a tree planting ceremony I remembered a chance encounter I had with Deepak Arora. Deepak, who while virtually neglecting a flourishing business in something mundane and unimportant, wishes instead to be known as the man who wishes to plant ten lakh trees in Gujarat, setting of a revolution whose ramifications will be felt for the benefit of future generations. Deepak and his group of ever increasing volunteers take time off, organize sapling nurturing sessions citing the ideology of karma yoga. From sourcing the saplings to finding the requisite land, cleaning the rubble organizing water, manure and most of all tender care take up most of their time and whatever available meager finance. Then it is a ritual handing the project over to the local community after generating a green awareness.

At a time when world decisions regarding greenhouse gases and global warming are leading to half baked and unrealistic solutions it is heartening to come across people like Deepak who genuinely believe, “we want to bring in a green revolution thus making our city a better place to live for us and our future generation. We have a vision to create a heaven in our surroundings.”

Ever so many personages and their just perfect contributions fine tuning the city’s intermingled amalgamation of human emotions on a concrete plain. The cultural history and tradition of the people of Ahmedabad is based on service, compassion and care. Thus paving the way for a better future.
Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

Exchanging Ideas, Exchanging Culture

2008-07-09T19:48:00.004+05:30

Bright and early in the morning an overcast sky for company, a congregation of a hundred young school girls gather around the terrace of their institution, the R.B.R.C High school in Khadia. A series of sing-along songs, yells and yodels and much jumping are in order as a bunch of World Camp volunteers try to energize the gathering to break down barriers and generally signal a beginning of a good, informative time. The bustle buzz of a Pol awakening surrounds us on this misty monsoon morning in Ahmedabad. Within this orderly chaotic melee, the World Camp volunteers stand out, wearing smartly embroidered kurtas with the Camp logo emblazoned behind, motivating the girls on while forming an intricate sculpture of warmth and mutual sharing.

As the mornings trust exercises and high energy games wound to a close, I think back to that fateful day, a couple of months back, when I first heard about World Camp and Price Massey. A series of net conversations later, Price and Bishakha were setting up the house, meeting various NGOs, traversing the city for essential purchases and generally building a comfortable base. Soon Nicolas Campbell and Katy Lackey joined in getting the whole shebang ready in time for the arrival of the volunteers.

World Camp for Kids is a group of young volunteers from the US wanting to teach, serve and motivate and in turn imbibe the culture, dynamics and flavor that is India. Through a three day module of camps ably assisted by local translators, World Camp hopes to bring about awareness regarding a host of subjects, from hygiene and nutrition to health and environment. Alternative teaching methods, visual aids and a variety of songs and games are intricately meshed to bring out a sense of fun and understanding to the program. As Steven Roller, one of the American volunteers (he has been seriously trying to make some sense of the game of cricket these past few days) puts it. ‘Even while imparting knowledge, we are soaking within a culture, foreign and equally learning from the experiences. So the zeal and positivity of these youngsters is enervatingly infective. There is a sense of adventure while spreading good cheer and holistic information coupled with an honest desire to share and exchange views.’

Price, the ‘head honcho’, herself began her journey as a World Camp volunteer in the Malawi program before joining full time. As she puts it World Camp for Kids was an endeavor by a group of American University Students to reach out and empower children and their communities all over the world. To this end the Malawi education outreach program was set up in the year 2000 followed by Honduras and in 2007 the pilot program in Ahmedabad was successfully launched.

One of the volunteers Catherine Meyer has been in Ahmedabad for the past month as a sort of one person vanguard research team. Her mission here was to evaluate specific regional needs and garner valuable information to enable a seamless setting for the camp curriculum. She says, “While education is a form of service and satisfaction, it is also a learning experience both ways.” Sylvia Mendez from New York hopes to understand her life better through service, while strengthening her belief in the future through humanitys children. Jodi Goodman, Tricia Mears and Jennifer Upchurch elucidate their previous experiences in Malawi and try to find parallels and differences with the Ahmedabad program. Natasha Adlakha is trying to reach out to a number of girls informing them of various issues while attempting to brush up on her Hindi.

The decibel level is high in the class taught by Jake and Jill (aka Jacob Stout and Jillian Haac), punctuated by a lot of bonhomie and high fives. The little girls of the school enthusiastically want to know and experience all the information that is being shared. Standing at the school corridor getting the morning snacks ready one is engulfed by a cacophonic babel of high voltage sounds, energetic kids rumbustingly enjoying themselves and having fun out of a learning experience.

The culmination of the three day camps result in the presentation of impromptu skits enacted by students of the schools. This is celebrated by the volunteers gifting a care bag of hygiene products and a sapling to each participant as a symbolic gesture of friendship and amity. The saplings are being donated by Kunal Vakil who runs a wonderful boutique called Exxalt and is an active supporter of World Camp.

This wonderful synthesis of the World Camp and the girls school was made possible by the NGO CHETNA, the NGO also helped with an unstructured camp in Sabarmati. Over there World Camp interacted with children of migrant laborers working for the railways and the power plant. In the ensuing weeks this group of volunteers will be conducting activities in diverse areas of the city, interacting with a cross strata of society. In this they will be assisted by local NGOs and schools such as Samvedana in Vadaj, Viswabharati High School in Thaltej, SAATH in Behrampura and Dudheshwar and Sahyog at Vatwa.

Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

Subrata Bhowmick

2008-06-18T19:38:00.000+05:30

A person whose Wide vistas of accomplishments straddle creative writing, textile art, graphics, advertising, photography, exhibition design and the teaching with a desire to pass on all that he knows. Subrata Bhowmick, who time and again has proved his detractors wrong, circumventing the impossible and converting it into a gamut of art. Through all of this however to me he has been friend, advisor, mentor and above all Bhowmick kaka. Four decades of being actively enmeshed in Ahmedabad’s creative explosion, interacting, working, communicating and arguing with some of the equally enigmatic personalities that have made Ahmedabad, the design hub of India.

Ahmedabad in the 60s with its concentration of multi disciplinary interaction was a young Subrata’s training ground. And since then there has been no looking back. As he says, “there are two kinds of people, those that become attached to a city and give selflessly to increase its magnificence and those who attack the city and leech it and decimate its ability to grow.” Subrata Bhowmick is in love with this city which adopted him and using his multifarious talents, has ensured that Ahmedabad occupies center stage and its importance and its importance as a cultural core flowers. Fascinated by the stark power of black lines and the contrasting white spaces in between has always been Subrata’s domain of exploration verging into the grays of black and white imagery. At one time or the other he has been associated with all the variety of institutions that link Ahmedabad’s creative field together. Beginning as part of the pioneering team at Calico to one of the earliest students at an experimental NID, to now being Creative Director of Mudra Communications, it has been a fruitfully romantic journey for Bhowmick Kaka.

His earliest memories take him back a scion of a traditional Bengali family involved in the jute business in Dhaka, present day Bangladesh. As a child he remembers being carried on the back of a family retainer through the jute plantations. The upheavals of partition caused the family to migrate to Howrah, where his father began a retail textile business. This was his first exposure to textiles. His education at this time was handled by his mother at home until a fateful day when he followed some neighborhood children down the main street and discovered the existence of a school. And ecstatic Subrata ran back home and convinced his parents to enroll him there immediately. Even as a child he loved to sketch and paint which was frowned upon by his father and so with encouragement from his mother he used to hide his work under his bed while creatively exploring the power of the line and color on paper. This fascination drew him to utilize his drawing skills to illustrate the most mundane of subject at school. His school test papers must have made exotic reading as they consisted of drawings, maps, and illustrations more than the written words.

An adventure on the ferry across to Kolkata from Howrah, led him to discover Art College. During this juncture at his life, except for his fathers retail business the rest of the family were all civil and construction engineers. Bridges, dams, roads, buildings and architectural drawings was considered the respectable future to strive for. However young Subrata was adamant, he wanted to join Arts School. Though being a student of science, he not only secured admission but also got a scholarship which with the help of friends and well wishers made him acquire ‘precious’ paints and paper. His natural inclination towards graphics, led him in the direction of applied arts.

The twists and turns of life are unpredictably strange by far, a causal glance at an advert looking for designers at the Calico Mills in Ahmedabad made him apply and land up for the interview. Holding on to his portfolio and waiting his turn he almost lost his confidence as there were far more senior aspirants waiting for the same job. But fate had other things in store as the city of Ahmedabad beckoned and Subrata Bhowmick found himself part of the core design team of Calico Textile Mills. Calico mills under the Sarabhais at that time were creating ripples of revolutionary design innovation in the field of Indian textiles. Tremendous freedom and space was given to the designers to explore their creative ability to the fullest. This was also the time that Ahmedabad as a city was at its creative best. With cutting edge intermingling of talent, ideas, and an amalgamation of activities which made Ahmedabad the most culturally vibrant city anywhere. Ahmedabad, in the 60s and 70s was a fascinating city to be a part of. Modern architecture and design were flowing side by side along with a respect and understanding of traditional arts and craft forms. The classic monochrome photograph of pachedis spread out to dry on the banks of the Sabarmati by Courtier Bresson would be the ideal symbolic image of the symbiotic synthesis between the old and new.

It was Giraben who sent the young designer Subroto Bhowmick to the National Institute of Design…. To be continued…..
Published : Ahmedabad Mirror

Subroto Bhowmick

2008-06-11T19:46:00.000+05:30

It was Giraben who sent the young designer Subrata Bhowmick to the National Institute of Design to experiment, to learn and to grow. An interesting byproduct of this was his learning to ride a cycle which in those days cast exactly ‘four naya paisa’ rental per day. The kerosene run light bulb on the cycle was much more expensive to rent than the cycle itself, but that piece of equipment was compulsory to use as an accessory in those seemingly more traffic conscious days.

Gautam Sarabhai along with Giraben ran both the textile mill with its various departments situated as far away as Bapunagar to the Nation Design Institute. Gautambhai Sarabhai was quite adamant in the fact that no one should work after six in the evening. Subrata Bhowmick, in spite of numerous arguments was workohically different. His typical day began in the wee hours of morning, imbibing the machine made art of printed textiles at the mill, then onwards across the bridge to the Design Insitute. Experiments at play, exposed brick walls sculpted around the greens of trees, polished pebbles underfoot, glass, leather, chrome and proverbial rubber plant, inter-connected, multidisciplinary NID.

And then before one knew it, numerous cup of tea and a variety of discussions later, it was already evening and time to return back to the klaxon call of the Calico Mill to work on till late. With due apologies to the Beatles, ‘so little time and so much to do’.

It was the textile industry that ran and defined the city of Ahmedabad, the trade and commerce of this city was inextricably woven within the fabric of this tapestry of mills. Its skyline dotted by an array of brick chimneys, individually embellished with design motifs to give them their distinctive identity. The musical notations of sirens, a familiar sound by which the circle of time was measured. Hand block printed fabric using natural dyes, drying on the river bank with industrial structures mass producing printed textiles looming over them, each complementing the other in the aura generated by their own space. The Calico mill compound and the National Institute of Design spilt across the banks of the flowing Sabarmati, it waters seeped in the woven living history. Delicate machinery resembling human fingers creating floral, geometric patterns on flowingly undulating fabric while elsewhere a master craftsman using hand carved blocks explores the bounty of nature on a textile canvas. In this city of connected contrasts, both are urban art forms, having utility, value and above all beauty. It was industrial wealth which nurtured the traditional craft and they in turn served as repositories of creative knowledge, a symbolic intertwining thread of a unique cultural heritage, a living testimony of an industrial revolution celebrating the cultural traditions mirrored in architectural hegemony of the warp and weft of the city. Rabindra Sangeet. Sunday mornings were reserved for Prakash Cinema where Bengali films were screened and the rest of the day was spent on exploring, sketching and learning the intricate maze of the multi-culturally cohesive city.

Cycling through the sinewy lanes of the old city, catch a screening of ‘Cat Ballou’ at the English Theatre, topped off with an evening spent eating at the Manek Chowk was the proverbial icing on the cake.

These are some of the nostalgic meanderings of Subrata Bhowmick as he leans back at the settee at his Bhowmically Mondrianisque-Miro home interior, the walls punctuated with tapestries of his own creation, complementally showing space with traditional urban folk formulations.
Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

Ushaben Malji a Freedom Fighter

2008-05-16T19:25:00.000+05:30

Amazing woman, my aunt, Ushaben Malji. An absolutely fascinating life she has led and what stories she weaves. A lazy afternoon, post lunch, sipping tea, a wizened lady, elegant, twinkling positive energy eyes. Sitting up in bed with a sheaf of papers, writing Gujarati long hand, large letters her memories that she begun a couple of years back. A pictorial history of black and white photos abound with surroundings along with knick knacks and mementos of an eventful life, still going strong through eighty five years of Indian history. A remarkably sharp mind, with a child like inquisitiveness and hunger for new knowledge and the desire to know, to learn, the countless intellectual arguments she loves having, discussions galore and she does love to talk.

A childhood spent growing up in Khadia amidst a progressive family, she was enrolled in Ahmedabad’s first co-educational school in Sarangpur, while evenings were spent doing calisthenics at an open ground in Khadia. Due to an outbreak of plague in the city the family shifted across the river bank to the western side of the city. There surrounded by berry bushes, fields and goat herders the family was instrumental in setting up Ahmedabad’s first cooperative society, Pritam Nagar. Its proximity to the Kochrab Ashram and my grandfather’s stern Gandhian outlook, the family compulsorily attended the evening prayers. This was the molting and training ground for a young impressionable girl. The year 1938 saw her joining the Sewa dal which sent her to Haripura for training and work. Not wanting to send a 15 year old girl alone, the family shifted to Haripura for the duration of the Shivir. Ushaben’s hands weave through the air in imaginary brush strokes as she recollects Nandalal Bose and nine artists who had arrived from Santiniketan and were given the task of beautifying the entrance gate. Brushes were in short supply so the artists took neem twigs, tied rags at one end and used them in a symphony of bold lines conducted by Nandalal Bose. Daily chores kept Ushaben extremely busy, hot water for Sarojini Naidu, a special breakfast for Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, and a host of other mundane jobs besides. The evenings were fun as everybody gathered around campfires, sang patriotic songs, danced and watched activist theatre. At the closure of the Haripura Congress the family returned back and Usha Lakhia was enrolled in Gujarat College as a science student. Gujarat College in those days was at the forefront of political activities.

Leaders such as Jayanti Bhai, Dr Kanunga, and aspiring communists such Jaswant Thakkar and Dinaben Gandhi were among Ushabens peer group. interference in the college union and restriction of acting on stage for women were some of the reasons which fuelled the passions of peaceful rebellions. It was at the peak of the Quit India movement. All the senior leaders were already state guest at the incarceration center at Sabarmati while others were in various stages of hiding. It was left to students to launch a series of peaceful protests culminating in the raising of the Tricolor over what was then known as the George V Hall in the College. A procession of students, boys and girls decided to take out a peaful demonstration to that effect from the Law College to the gate of Gujarat College. A determined twenty year old Ushaben was amongst them with the flag hidden in an inner pocket of her sari to avoid detection. An Indian detachment led by a British officer Drew was on guard. A previous attempt the other day had gone horribly wrong when her companion and friend Vinod Kinariwala was shot and the flag trampled underfoot in the resultant confusion. As he tripped and fell, she reached out and almost touched him, but she was pulled away and apart by the fleeing crowd.

True to Gandhiji’s philosophy the next day an announcement was made that they would succeed were the previous attempt had failed. There were more than fifty girls in the group along with the boys while the boys created a distraction below the girls wound their way up stairs. As Drew gave the order to shoot college professors rushed in and managed to convince the officer to step down. The girls made their way up and Ushaben unfurled the tricolor over the auditorium. In the chaos Ushaben and few others slipped away and Drew’s name was enshrined in history with a newspaper headline which said “Drew Withdrew”.

Suddenly the tone of fervor and determination softened to warmth as Ushaben turned to us and asked whether we would be staying for dinner. As we were getting ready to leave, she had this far away look in her eyes as she said bye and mentioned offhand that “you know it was almost two months before the authorities finally arrested me and I had the privilege of spending an extremely invigorating time at Sabarmati gaol but that is another story.”

Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

Ushaben Malji, Freedom Fighter

2008-05-15T19:31:00.001+05:30

Written History has always highlighted and glorified the achievements of few key personalities. But in the gamut of human experiences through time there are numerous inputs, anecdotes stories and deeds of heroic greatness by so many people. Ushaben Malji, a spunky, energetic 85 year old young woman, whemently advocating and protesting against the demise of the Gujarati language amongst today’s youth is one such person. Her story inextricably linked with the freedom movement in Gujarat and she shines at par with all of those luminaries enshrined in written history.

As she closes Jayanti Thakores memories of a country’s freedom won, Usha Malji’s jigsaw of an incidence flit across the air through patterns gestured by her fingers. “After the inebriated levels of trouble that we were causing the British the inevitability of capture was imminent yet this in fact spurred us on to be more and more daring and also reckless.” After the incident of raising the Indian flag on Gujarat College in August 1942 life at college for my aunt Ushaben and her colleagues had come to an end. After playing a significant role in opposing the British and therefore being pursued by the police she could not very well go back to the college and actually ended up convincing others including professors to boycott the entire institution.

All of a sudden this young woman of nineteen found herself an out log constantly staying one step ahead of arrest by the use of her wits and a lot of luck. The Quit India Movement meanwhile had spread to a major part of the country and the Sabarmati Jail was fast filling up with State guests from various territories of the country. It was Neerubhai Desai and Ramnikbhai Shah who were instrumental in organizing the student brigade of which Ushaben was a part. The clandestine press churning out revolutionary literature was on in full swing, its location being changed every couple of days to avoid detection. Printed copies were collected by groups of students and in the cover of darkness spread across the city like autumn leaf wafting in the breeze. There were times Ushaben transcribed carbon copies of the patrika, hiding them in the folds of her petticoat and sauntering past officials. This apart various bulletins and announcements needed to be imparted. After the patrika distribution boys and girls went out in groups, the former with cans of pitch and brushes and latter with pieces of chalk, while the boys traveled in front creating dark windows on walls with decisive brush strokes, the women followed filling in keybits of information as the paint dried. Ushaben and her maverick band were also assigned the task of mobilizing young children and formulating the prabhatpheri. This was an instant hit with the children as it involved generating a cacophony of sounds to awaken people at wee hours of morning, singing snatches of patriotic songs and generally making a nuisance of themselves for the authorities. The children were a perfect foil to initiate peaceful obstructions as the police could not arrest or use violent methods on minors.

Mobilizing children and restructuring non violent but politically subversive activities into fun filled enterprises was a task in itself. And it is this exposure that made Ushaben opt for a career in education later. Amongst the children the boys were formed into the Vanarsena while the girls group came to be called majarsena. More and more children joined the prabhatpheri in the coming days and along with the college the schools too shut down.

As Ushaaunty recalls, being constantly on the run did take its toll, but the people be the pol residents to waghari and chhara settlements were extremely supportive and these young adults were treated like liberators and heroes wherever they went amongst the common folk. Those were the heady days of adventure, courage and valor, sprinkled with more than their share of danger. In trying to avoid police dragnets, the youngsters used secret pathways and convoluted alleys, broad jumping walls and skirting fences, scuttling across rooftop landscapes and hiding out in fields and bushes plucking berries and fruits.

This nerve racking schedule did definitely take its toll on a fateful night when Ushaben and her younger brother, Rajnikant Lakhia came home to visit their mother and have a much needed bath, my grandmother who was waiting all this time to meet her daughter and son ,insisted that they stay on for dinner. Just as they were sitting for dinner dada (Rajnibhai) heard movements outside and everyone there knew that the game of cat and mouse had finally drawn to a close. Such was the importance being given to this nineteen year old girl that an entire contingent of police had surrounded the house along with a police van. The brother sister activists used their presence of mind and hid away a majority of the printed material they were carrying, but it was no use and they were finally captured two months after the famous Gujarat college incident.
To be continued..
Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

Ushaben Malji a Freedom Fighter

2008-05-14T19:34:00.002+05:30

The air was electrified by the arpeggios of the Quit India movement in Ahmedabad. The avenues and baroque buildings of Gujarat College wore a deserted look as even professors had sided with the students in the government education blockade. Due to innovative activities and the tacit support of parents, even children began to stop attending schools. Many signs of protests manifested all over. The name of Ushaben Lakhia was inextricably linked to a variety of incidents, peaceful agitation, dissemination of information et al. this was the time that most of the senior leaders were already in gaol, some voluntarily courting arrest and the rest captured on the run.

Meanwhile Ushaben, Rajnibhai my uncle and Madhuri a cousin continued their nocturnal activities, surreptitiously sliding information in and out of the gaol premises and generally making a thorough nuisance of themselves, while constantly keeping a step ahead of the authorities who dogged at their heels. Help and assistance came from all quarters overwhelmingly the people of the city offered food, clothing, shelter and the usage of secret passage to navigate through the nooks and crannies of the old city. It was to protect oneself against Marattha incursions that these elaborate ‘Pol’ maze dynamics had been originally devised and now they stood in good steed.

Meanwhile considering the humiliation suffered by the British during the Gujarat College Flag hoisting incident, the authorities were bent on making an example and the dragnet was gradually pincer like closing in. the desire to meet their mother, go home, to cooked food and a much needed bath finally did them in. carrying subversive periodicals, visiting home in Pritamnagar and my grandmother’s insistence on staying on to have one decent meal, gave the police all the time they needed. By the time the family sat for dinner, thirty policemen along with a van surrounded the locality. Packets of ‘patrikas’ were thrown across the rear wall of the house to be picked up by other group members. The underground printing press was hastily dismantled and its location changed overnight and by early morning news of their arrest had spread through the convoluted spy system devised by themselves.

As they were taken on the van, brother and sister series of cubicle dungeons resembling rows of dingy shop fronts with no ventilation or doors. A young Ushaben was placed with a couple of ‘Chhara women’ who regaled her with scary gossipy tales of scorpions, snakes and other strange behavior of some of the guards. Not a very reassuring situation for a very young nineteen year old, separated from her brother due to prison segregation. It being the weekend, the alleged political agitators could to be produced in court until Monday morning, Usha aunty had heard tales of horrendous experiences in gaols and the gossip of her fellow inmates (all petty criminals) did not help any.

My uncle Rajnibhai on the other hand had to share a cell with a master forger of that time by the name of Chandrkant master, who could in a clinch duplicate any handwriting or even engrave a dye. He was awaiting trial for massive embezzlement fraud and wiled away his time imitating any and everybody’s handwriting.

a nineteen year old girl, my aunt forced by conviction and circumstances to spend a traumatic time in a dank, musty dungeon awaited trial and an eventual transfer to Sabarmati gaol. Hope, help prayers answered, the most amazing miracles all create an aura of magic and that is what happened.

Ushaben’s memories are practically blurred, but the light divine at the end of this tunnel was crystal clear and a vindication of all that they were fighting for. The gaoler , an old man, Hindi speaking smiled reassuringly at the young girl. All at once she felt safe and protected. The watchman exuded goodwill, safety and above all a patina of protection from demons real and imagined.

At the juncture, reality infringed upon us with the arrival of tea. With her eyes moistening, Ushaben described the encounter as it had happened just the other day. ‘The gaoler beckoned me towards him’, she said and said that rest easy,”bitiya rani for I too have a daughter of your age who I have not seen in years, have no worries. My sins have been many and too terrible to tell; it is the presence of all you young Gandhians with the philosophy of non violence that gives my burning soul respite. From all of you I learn and hope that the gods in heaven give me respite.” So saying, he lit an oil lamp, sat himself outside the cell door and began to recite from the Ramayana. He continued far into the night illuminating the gloom and bringing enlightenment and tranquility to a place of torture and pain.

Unsung heros role playing complex characters, redemption, light, hope and the nascent spark of freedom, fascinating chimes, chance encounters and countless unsung heroes following rheir epic destinies.

On the following day as they were escorted to court, Ushaben touched the gaolers feet in reverence and he said, “aa mari kali zindagi no au ujalo diwas, whatever be the outcome remember me!”

Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

Tale of the “Walled City”

2008-04-30T19:22:00.001+05:30

Ahmedabad is a city seeped in a rich tapestry of culture, undulating along the twin banks of the river Sabarmati. This is the result of prosperity, stability and an intricate legacy of history through almost six hundred years. It is a city of contrast effortlessly dovetailing to form a seamless whole. Elephants, Ferraris patiently wait at street corners hawking burgers and vadapav; cotton waste to branded textiles encompassed in structures of modern disaster chic textiles to traditional wood mortar havelies. Ahmedabad is melting pots of variety of inter dependent communities and cultures giving rise to a unique blend of architectural form. This then is the Living Heritage of the city.

Actually, what is heritage? A living heritage comprises cultural, traditional, professional and the ritualistic modes of expression in a human settlement. A historical heritage is a legacy of previous milestones, its rich cultural diversity and the human imprint n harmony with nature. It is actually an inheritance from the past, maintained in the present for the benefit of future generations.

The city of Ahmedabad was founded in 1411 AD by Sultan Ahmed Shah. The construction was begun with the fort wall housing the intricately designed city within. The wall was consecrated at four points, by four ‘Ahmeds’, Sheikh Ahmed Khattu Ganj –Baksh, Kaji Ahmed, Malek Ahmed and Sultan Ahmed Shah construction of the city of Ahmedabad commenced in the year 1411A.D and was completed in 1417 A.D. much care was taken on the roads, drainage and planning of the city, Capital of the Gujarat Sultanate. For his new capital, Ahmed Shah erected a citadel, known as Bhadra(propitious) part of which still house government offices today. Palaces, gardens, market places with broad avenues were also initiated. A small mosque, named after the king was commissioned

The planned jigsaw that was the grand capital city of the Sultanate began to undulate and take shape. Ahmed Shah’s Ahmedabad was envisaged as a garrison city with a strong fort wall ringing around it. As the capital flourished, so it was deemed necessary to fortify it. Along with the citadel, palaces and markets work on the fort wall began in due earnest. The fort wall served as a deterrent to many as assault.

During the reign of Mahmud Begda, nobles form the court began to set up Suburban Township around the city. The wall has been a testimony to many an encroachment and internal power struggles. The wall sustained through the Sultanate period and the sway of the Mughals heralded by the entry of Emperor Akbar till the time marauding forces of the Marathas breached the Fort walls, to plunder and loot a weakening empire. It is due to these encroachments that the Mahajans and traders in the city started erecting fortifications and gates to their ‘mohallas’. Thus were born the concept of the ‘Pols’ with their gates, internal passages and security. It was after the events of 1857, that the British ordered ‘Pol’ gates to be demolished and the citizen cavalry demobilized.

It was in the early past of the 20th century, that the earstwile Ahmedabad Municipality under Sardar Patel sanctioned the demolition at select portions of the wall, to enable the city to grow outward and to ease the congestion within the walled city. Today parts of the wall exist along with around eleven exquisite gates which were the various entry and exit points to the city.

There is an interesting folk legend regarding the delayed construction of the city wall during the reign of Ahmed Shah. Legend has it that an ascetic named Maneknath Godaria, living on the banks of the Sabarmati sought to thwart the Sultans attempt to build a new capital. During the day, while construction on the ramparts, gates, and crenallations progressed, the ascetic was busy weaving an ornately detailed quilt. Come evening, the end of the days work with the craftsmen heading for their homes, Maneknath would unravel the weave in his fabric and thus would the days construction on the wall be undone. This unique act continued for a time until an exasperated emperor sent for the ‘Wankar’ ascetic and then began a discussion on magic and methods of sorcery. Amongst his other abilities, Maneknath boasted that he could not enter a tea pot ad exit through it stout. Like all rotative fairy tales, he was finally induced to do so and summarily captured. Before being permanently exiled within this strange gaol, Maneknath begged the Sultan to allow his name to be immortalized and connected to the city.

Happenings in murky annals of history tend to morph into myths was the case with Maneknath but his influence is inexorably linked to that of the city. The south western tower of the citadel, housing the foundation stone of the coty is even today known as Manek Burj and the bustling market square in the old city has always been known as Manek Chowk which is sufficed with colors, sounds, aromas and shapes of bustling metropolis of people and their heritage.

Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

Culinary Delights of the Walled City of Ahmedabad

2008-04-30T19:20:00.002+05:30

The aroma of species and masalas, the wonderful smell of meat roasting on the spit, the colors, the forms, the shapes; an absolute non vegetarian’s delight! These images are never alluded to Ahmedabad. This city’s official stance of non alcoholic, staid vegetarian has generated a lot of misconceptions amongst visitors and residents alike.

Contrary to expectations, Ahmedabad is like a magician pulling out surprises out of its hat. The non vegetarian cuisine of Ahmedabad is not only strikingly ex citing but varied. The amounts of flavors, styles, condiments, are just amazing! Ahmedabad is a mixed bag of culture bringing with it a broad vista of culinary forms. While on one hand you can have bacon and eggs on toast with your morning cup of coffee on the other its appam with dry meat and your morning cup of filter coffee. Tarapore Patia and Dhanshak with rice to mutton dry fry and stew with rice and the wonderful diverse biryanis make lunch a laid back royal affair. And as the night life of Ahmedabad catches you by surprise its sizzlers, Shepard’s pie, and frankies to Irani chicken, dabba gosht , and the sheer variety of kababs blending into tiers and levels of eating places. The advantage of having the largest coastline means an array of fascinating sea food nurtured by various communities according to their palette.

Restaurants and eating places exist to serve every level of financial existence. The different kinds of cuisines and styles mirror the cultural diversity of the city. The style and shape of food changes according to seasons and communities. An innocuous dish of white chicken can be prepared in a myriad variety of ways, a lot of which can occupy an infinite amount of time, much to the connoisseurs delight!

A variety of cuisines to suit a variety of palettes! A city of cross-cultural restaurants indulging in exotic gastronomical delights, but it is the non-vegetarian street food in its subtle variations that really explores the pulse of the city. Ahmedabad is home to a jigsaw of cultural variations through food. And it is the ‘larris’ and stalls that capture an essence of a historical ink to distant lands. The aroma of spiced recipes and a mix of blend of people from various strata stepping out to eat is an interesting route of exploration through the very grooves of Ahmedabad city.

Non vegetarian street corner food is an amalgamation of scents, smells, a visual overload of color and lighting, scenes and drama and an aroma laden mist hanging over the air, as thin as gossamer with a wisp of memory. Eating places enveloped in an atmosphere of smells and shapes located in nooks and crannies within the convoluted environs of the walled city. Though adventures and intriguing, these environs are not for the faint hearted and weak stomached.

A nocturnal drive ‘across the bridge’ to the auto spare parts, mutton market of Mirzapur, shuttered down shop fronts, loose paper an leaves carrooming around deserted sidewalks. You swerve across a small temple shrine and are suddenly assailed by forms taking shape through the glimmer of red, blue, green colors of lights and the aroma of meat with a sizzling sound of cooking mutating in the background. A push cart ‘larri’ with plastic chairs, roasting ‘tandoors’, groups of people single mindedly eating with hunks of dismantled meat and poultry hung out forming a pop rendition of a mobile installation. This and other beacons of gastronomical delight form an integral part of Ahmedabad’s living heritage. A recipe and the styles and the condiments within which it is born form a storehouse of information regarding the cultural flow of intertwined communities that makes up this city.

Spiced, roasted, fried with gravies on the side, different brads and rotis grace the variety of meat, poultry fish and prawns all labeled and compartmentalized in a street patois unique to Ahmedabad. Everything is a happening waiting to be experienced, visual, and olfactory, blended with appropriate seasoning swirling in a bowl of cultural potpourri. It is all high art including the street slang poetry of food.

As one travels down this path of discovery, a inner city map of interesting food havens emerges along with surrounding living spaces and the people ho inhabit them. community celebrations and festivals are marked with specific delicacies, subtle flavors changing according to area. Seasonal changes in condiments and styles are also factored in. thus a little known landscape of Ahmedabad unfolds through only a small non-vegetarian aspect of its total cuisine topography.

Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

Manek Kaka, Block Maker from Pethapur

2008-04-23T19:17:00.002+05:30

A percussion symphony, the clackety clack of castanets tintinnabulations of metal ringing, punctuated by raw twangs of woven camel hair strings; no orchestra this, but the tumultuous sounds abounding the workplace of the makers of the block. Particulate wooden dust swirling motes dancing in slanting sun rays through slattern windows; craftsmen seated in non liquor sequences, precision tools delicately wroughting filigreed veins on living wood. Wafts of sawdust and oil intermingling with writhing tendrils of ‘beedi’ smoke permeating the air within the working kingdom of a wizened old man, all in white, thick bifocals, a roughshod shaven face, thin wispy hair on an otherwise sparse, pink head, trembling hands gesture as a coarse work shorn voice muses over the intricacies of a life well colorfully lived. This then is Maneklal Gajjar, the block maker, master craftsman extra ordinary, the last of the stalwarts of the Saudagiri Prints.

Pethapur is a village near Gandhinagar, which seems to have seen better days. There was a time, the place resounded with the cacophony of a thousand workshops with skilled ‘Gajjar’ artisans, weaving their patterns on blocks of wood to enhance fabric into the most fantastical of colors and shapes in design. The ghosts of the past haunt you as you walk down dusty streets to “Manek kaka’s” modest home and work place. Pethapur in the present; four artisans struggling to make ends meet in a fast paced world where appreciation of the art form is more of a connoisseur luxury.

A small room, long narrow windows, artisan’s tools lining on end three legged working stools on the floor, framed citations and newspaper clippings covering the walls and an old man wandering lonely. A thin film of wood dust covers an old weather worn table as a varicose hand clears a space on it, tracing circles with a forefinger. Manekkaka recollects his life and the romanticism of the Saudagiri trade with ancient Siam. The dowager Mankelal Gajjar can hardly see, his hands shake, he cannot work anymore but the inborn skill and vigor is still there as he chips away with a chisel and wooden mallet, gently urging relief patterns on a non descript block of wood while wiping away the veil of time to talk of his beginnings as he learned the trade at his uncle’s factory. Everybody and their grandfather were block makers then. Young lad were apprenticed with their neighbors and Maneklal was no exception, getting to know the vagaries of the wood block, to work on wood and metal, tracing paper designs on chalked surfaces, to emerge at last a master and creative innovator.

Laurels and hosannas to his craft decorate his walls, newspaper clippings, sepia tinted photos, the odd invite and then the craft festivals attended, apprentices trained and thesis’s guided; all of which are cogs in the gear box of Maneklal Gajjar’s life. A craftsman of Saudagiri blocks and a wife who is no more, a wife who helped in his work, virtually otherwise ran his world and together they brought forth their two daughters. Daughters who broke all social taboos and apprenticed to the trade; they are married but the skill is not yet forgotten. So the stories move as Manek kaka unravels the weave of his life.

‘Saudagiri’, the trader; textile print of that name is what sustained Pethapur. Floral, geometric with distinctive borders is what dictated fashion in Siam and it originated and was conceptualized here in Pethapur. Workshops were connected to a trading company, in Maneklal’s case, ‘Muskati and Co.’ one of the three in Surat. The basic designs arrived delicately traced on paper from Siam. The artisans then began to work their magic on wood, embellishing the pattern with designs of their own. The number of relative bocks each principle unit had, was determined by it color variations.

And this is where the journey begins to wax lyrically. The ready blocks, oil soaked master pieces start their life purpose by being loaded by ‘Rabaris’ on camel carts to be carried to Ahmedabad and the banks of the Sabarmati. Their journey’s ended as they were welcomed by traditional block printers, ‘Khatris’ and ‘Bhavsars’. Undulating swathes of fabric, the excess dye washing off in rivulets of color, floating over and under flowing water.

Bales of printed fabrics was hoisted on to barges to reach the port of Cambay and onward to Bombay. Here a ‘Muskati’ company trade ship took over for a long sea journey through the Palk Straits on to Siam, there to be fashioned into garments to suit all manner of people. The return brought back fresh designs and the client was engraved within the border patterns. A successful trade mission meant the company men descending on Pethapur to distribute bonuses and the trade continued until the advent of the Second World War when the Japanese sealed off the land route and a trade ship was sunk by a German Submarine off the port of Bombay. This signaled the death knell for ‘Saudagiri’. The traders never recovered and their trails and privations trickled down the chain gradually marking an end to a way of life, a generations old hereditary craft form of the Gajjars of Pethapur.

Bhula Bhai, the Painter of a Legacy

2008-04-16T19:12:00.001+05:30

A classic black and white photograph of sheets of fabric spread out to dry along the sandy bed of the river. The single frame is like a balanced painting. The photographer was Cartier Bresson and the picture was a vision of this textile city. The image depicted ‘Mata ni Pachedi’ drying in the sun after being washed in the river Sabarmati. The ‘Mata-ni-Pachedi is a part of Ahmedabad’s living heritage. It is a ‘kalamkari’ textile art form. It differs from the other similar painted Indian fabrics as it depicts various aspects of the Mother Goddess as the central image. This is the work of the Chitara community.

Bhulabhai Chitara is an unassuming, short, balding soft-spoken man. His eyes though are dark and deep and his dexterous hands work like magic while painting on fabric. Bhulabhai is a traditional ‘Pachedi painter’ and the oldest in the last remaining Chitara family in Ahmedabad. Most of the extended family stays in Vasna. As the afternoon sun wears on, Bhulabhai sits painting, generating an aura of calm around him. He is surrounded by the squalor and noise of dogs, running children, shouts, cooking smoke and all that makes up a meshed human settlement. Yet he sits serene, his hands holding a sharpened neem twig, dipping it now and then in a black paste, whipping up narrative stories on the fabric before him. The man’s uncanny sense of balance and form is brilliant and he recollects each story behind the images that he is drawing.

Bhulabhais hands shirk there working as he talks of the legends regarding the origin of his community. They and only they have been blessed by the mother goddess to depict her image on fabric. The Pachedi is commissioned by people from diverse communities having the same social status such as Bharwads, Rabaris, Targalas, Naiks et al. specially during the twice yearly festival of Navratri. A Mata-ni-Pachedi eulogizes a particular aspect of the mother goddess, each aspect is invoked and the relevant Pachedi commissioned for a particular propitious reason. As Bhula bhai outlines his figures he continues his conversation. Both activities operate on their independent planes, the traditional Pachedi he says, utilized three colors, black, a dark maroon and the white of the background cloth. Each color had a specific importance and place. The whole process of making the Pachedi is seeped in ritual as it has a deep religious resonance and is an offering to the patron mother goddess. Even the handing over of a completed Pachedi and its later unveiling is a ceremonial ritual. These ceremonies are themselves illustrated within the Pachedi thus apart from a central, religious perspective, the Pachedi is also a data bank containing legends, folk tales, scenes from daily life, enactment of rituals and the stuff of oral history. Earlier three Pachedi with a canopy on top to form an enclosed space served as mobile temple for nomadic communities on the move. Even though the people roam no more the rituals surrounding a Pachedi are still enacted. Musicians and bards highlight a particular image within the painting and sing and spin their tales.

Bhula bhai works entirely with natural dyes, the black is the fermented solution of iron dust and jaggery. While the maroon is derived from the plants root majith. The image of the mother goddess is always drawn in by the male of the family, while the women help by filling in the color. The pre-mordanding, the lyrical ness of washing off the excessive dye in flowing river water is along with the drawing the job of the male member of the household. All this while Bhula Bhais imagery on fabric is in progress and he explains the intrinsic composition of the drawing. The Pachedi has as its central image the mother goddess riding her relevant mount and ensconced within a two dimensional replica of a temple structure. Around this central imagery is illustrated an entire pictoral history, peppered in myths of the community. Its is indeed a living document which can be unraveled and decoded by future generations.

The evening shadows have lengthend as Bhula Bhai completes his narrative. He is indeed an artist and a master craftsman who has been honored in festivals abroad and is a recipient of the Gurushilpa award in his own right. His three sons, Chandrakanth, Kiran and Vikram are National Awardees and keenly furthering the legacy of their forefathers. Thus are master pieces created amidst such apparent squalor, surmounted by whiffs of cooking fires and wafting wisps of fermenting dyes.

Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

Samvedana, Give your compassion a name..

2008-03-19T19:00:00.002+05:30

Quarter of century ago during those heady days of college, one interacted and intersected with so many exciting and interesting people. Being small town Ahmedabad then, most of our families knew each other but here in college we were beginning new acquaintances and relationships culminating in meetings around the corridors and the canteen. This was St Xaviers in the early 80s in whose hallowed corridors, I met this girl Janki Vyas. The corridor later branched and she took the path towards Economics and I followed the literary mews.

Fast forward to the present with spreading awareness about global warming and climate change to children through a series of interactive events; I met Janki Vyas again. Time had not etched her much and I remembered the face except that marriage had brought about a change in name. And time had lent her a sense of purpose! She in now the better half of Hiten Vasant, scion of the Vasant Group, an active working trustee of the Calorex Foundation and a support base to Samvedana. So now I was meeting Janki Vasant the founder and the principal energizer of Samvedana, an Ahmedabad based NGO working with underprivileged children. Samvedana means compassion and that I believe Janki Vasant has oodles of . In her own words, the vision for Samvedana could translate as “Supporting the social growth of the less privileged slum children by providing good educational opportunities and to uplift their whole environment by various welfare programmes, outdoors exposures and event celebrations. “

Samvedana works out of Vadaj, in a Municipal school next to the water tank. They reach out to almost a 1000 young individuals, Janki is very passionate about the works she does. And one can see that in not only her relationship with the school children but also in the sense of purpose she instils in her volunteers. She established Samvedana six years back and since then has been diligently working to bring about change. Samvedana is a proper school for economically challenged children, providing them with a quality education at par or better than any other school for privileged children. It follows a proper school structure with prayer to start the day, three lectures of 45 minutes each and mass P.T. to end the day. All the academic subjects, as well as creative craft, drawing, games, value education and yoga are evenly distributed throughout the week. The children from class 3 onwards are introduced to computers. Recognising the importance of nutrition in growing children, fruits are provided to the children on a daily basis. More than anything else the emphasis is on the importance of self-discipline and the value of time and self.
Like any selfless institutions Samvedana too survives on grants and aid. To serve this end Hiten Vasant formulated ‘Corporate Cricket for a Cause’. As Hiten the other day while proudly gesturing towards his wife said “a lot of people would like to do something for a cause but either do not have the means or the time to do it in; therefore the idea of a cricket tournament where companies participate leaving aside their mutual business differences. Hence Samvedana becomes a common platform for Corporates to comes together and share in the noble cause along with volunteers and well wishers.”

This year’s night cricket program was held at the Rajpath Club in the month of February. Various companies participated and the winner of the tournament was IDEA. It is interesting to note here that IDEA was roped into the tournament by the COO, Balesh Sharma of Vodafone who happens to be an ardent supporter of Samvedana. While the tournament was on the spirit of cricket took over and bonded team players to perform better and work together. Here they were coming together and playing for a good cause and the sense of competitiveness was more towards the game.

On the 9th of March, Sunday while Samvedana was celebrating its Annual sports day with the kids who were all looking forward to the evenings award celebrations, Ahmedabad was paid a not so quite visit by actor- director Mr Naseeruddin Shah. He took time out from a busy schedule to offer his support and be a part of Samvedanas celebration. He gave away the cricketing awards, interacted with volunteers and whole heartedly encouraged the children. In his address to the guests he completely supported Samvedanas activities and wished he could personally do more. He urged people to participate at whatever level and be of help in any small measure to such an activity which helps in building up the citizens of the future. While Naseer was waxing eloquent about Samvedana I noticed that Janki’s eyes had welled up with tears but I think she deserves all the praise she received on that day and I genuinely wish that she continues to bring about change and hope in the lives of so many more children in the future.
Published:Ahmedabad Mirror

Judyben, the American Rabari

2008-02-12T18:58:00.005+05:30

Quarter of a century ago, a young American woman traveled through Kutch fell in love with its people and traditional crafts. She stayed on and today Judy Frater out of the wild sands of Kutch has developed a NGO, put together a textile and craft museum, set up the first only design institute for artisans and in the process has been adopted an Honorary Rabari. The first time I met Judy was years ago while documenting a Rabari ritual while she was with the group of Rabari women unrecognizable as a foreigner. As our noisy jeep disturbed the calm of the village it was she who was most affronted and explained to us the customs and traditions of the rituals we were going to shoot. Thus began an acquaintance with this remarkable woman and we kept meeting of and on.

Judy Frater is a woman with multi faceted talents; she is an anthropologist, textile researcher, author and social entrepreneur. She believes that the traditional artisan is the best designer, in India design almost flows in the veins of the artisan. Through practical field work, research, training and interaction since the last two decades she has been building up an artisan base to contribute in the sustainability of craft traditions.

After living with the Rabaris and coming to understand the importance of their traditional beliefs and textile craft forms, Judy realized that astute marketing and preservation for continuity was necessary. Somewhere along the way she was seeking to strike a balance between the Rabari tradition and their exposure to a modern market. Kala Raksha began with a group of 20-25 women and is now a family comprising women villages spread all over Kutch.

Sumrasar Sheikh a tiny Rabari hamlet, North of Bhuj is where Judy began to shape her visions into reality. In the year 1993, a group of artisans were brought together to form Kala Raksha Trust. Kala Raksha as the name evokes is for preservation of talent, skill and sustainability of the craft traditions. It is a social enterprise ‘for the artisan, by the artisan and of the artisan’. Jat, Mochi, Mutava, Sodha Rajput, Ahir Meghwals and Rabari women intrinsically embroider their traditional motifs in contemporary products for a modern market orchestrated by the Ngo.

My relationship with Judy was rekindled when my wife and I were working with the Chitara community and she happened to visit. A diminutive American in a bandhni sari, with the tinkle of glass bangles, and beaded tassels; and enigmatically mischievous sparkle in her eyes, and the welcoming warmth of her personality had my wife whooping with respect mingled with awe. Author Judy, it seems is highly respected in design colleges. That was when I realized how important was Judys contribution in the world of Indian textiles. This has let to a working relationship with the Kala Raksha Vidyalaya.

Kala Raksha Vidyalaya is the first ever Institute of its kind in India and may be world. The Vidyalaya is located in pristine surroundings, neighboring the village of Tunda Vandh in Kutch district of Gujarat. The buildings are a marvel of architectural form blending with the local topography in harmony with the colors of the land, designed by architect Heman Sanghvi. The center has facilities for weaving, dyeing and printing and an excellent library with computers and adequate residential space for the students and faculties.

The vision of the Vidyalaya is to develop a new approach to design education based on existing traditions. One important activity is to discover, articulate and utilize the existing systems of knowledge, skills, design and innovation to working traditional artisans. The focus of the institute is on acquiring knowledge and skills that will enable artisans to use design effectively in order to successfully reach appropriate new markets, while at the same time strengthening traditional identity. The design school is a unique one of its kind set up with at most care and patience.

Sadly all of it may come to naught with the coming of two coal based power plants heralding industry and change in the region. Thus while celebrating its second year of success the looming darkness of the power plant casts a shadow over this unique educational experiment. It was under these morbid circumstances that I met Judy again, in spite of the probability of relocating the institute and beginning again from scratch Judy was more optimistic and energized than I have seen her before. She was mobilizing opinion, corresponding with donors and generally spreading the word while she kept distributing hugs and smiles to a variety of village women.

Manoj Shah, the Man of Theatre

2008-02-06T18:50:00.003+05:30

Performing arts defines titles conjuring images of the theatre; of performances, live entertainment, teaching history and one of the oldest types of human interaction. Confusing isn’t it?

This is exactly what Manoj Shah says when he talks about theatrical criticism. Lazing in the lounge of the Sports Club, post lunch one listened to Manoj talk about “his theatre”.
A celebration of stories, a gathering of people, the telling of folk tales coupled with the elements of music and dance that is the magic called theatre, the world that Manoj Shah is a part of. Manoj seem brimming with ideas breaking new territories and barriers and like a court jester enjoying himself completely in the process. Small wonder his company is called “Ideas Unlimited”, whose frontiers go beyond infinity. And as Manoj says any and everything is theater and aren’t we all actors. In spite of the advent of cinema and the two dimensional moving image, the stage still retains its fascinating charm, its personalized relationship between actors and audience and commands a loyal following. In fact as time goes by, more and more barriers are crossed over by performers and audience alike in their constant search for communicative growth and fulfillment.

These descriptive elements bring as to an interestingly enigmatic Mr Manoj Shah.. Stage extra, actor, instigator, amalgamator, visualizer and director, he has traveled through it all. Delving into the history of theatre as an art form, an exciting experiment bore fruit albeit years in gestation. A kurta half size small, salt and pepper beard and hair, eyes peaking through glasses and suffusing the entire space around him with a smile. Manoj is always so happy to see people and he radiates that mischievous sense of adventure that dares you to walk the plays with him.

Manoj was in Ahmedabad with three of his productions, Master Phulmani, Mareez, Apurva Avasar. All varied, different and full of energy mirroring the director passion for the medium. Manoj Shah picks his stories painstakingly works on them, decides on who is going to play a role be it an actor or the art director. Over another cup of coffee we discussed the making of Master Phulmani, and Manoj Shah stretched back in time to remind me of a common friend who unfortunately is no more yet has been and will always remain an integral part of the play. We toasted coffee as we remembered Bhupen Khakhar, the painter poet, writer and friend.

Gujarat has been home and has nurtured many a creative personality. Artist Bhupen Khakhar’s name is enshrined in the annals of contemporary Indian Art. He played a very important role in building up the narrative figurative movement in this country. I remember having numerous arguments with this dear soft spoken friend over cups of chai outside the CEPT canteen. While hearing Manoj talk about his work with Bhupen one felt that it wasn’t just two friends or personalities coming together but two different mediums trying to form a common understanding and making magic!

A chance encounter of Manoj Shah at a writers workshop with Bhupen Khakkar, the painter began a relationship culminating in the two attempting to work together, to understand each others medium, bring about a synthesis with due respect to both the art forms and eventually palatable to the audiences. The seeds of those series of conversations germinated into a full scale Gujarati stage production, “Master Phulmani”. Bhupen and Manoj created a platform where two mediums; painting and theatre came together exerting their influence on each other. Ideas were bantered upon and Bhupen was triggered and excited to paint a series of paintings which would in turn change the way the director choreographed. The process was long and convoluted; Bhupen would come and sit in on the rehearsals, asking questions, making sketches and quietly observing. Thus the interaction snaked along, Manoj would painstakingly explain the scenes, discuss the music and the characters. Bhupen in turn would make a series of sketches to illustrate his vision. Due to the difference in mediums, Manoj could not fathom Bhupens final piece from just looking at sketches to illustrate his vision. But a rapport had been established and the contorted road to creative intersection continued.

The day dawned when Bhupen unveiled his vision of Master Phulmani. The result was amazing to say the least. For the first time in Manoj’s theatre career the artists backdrop began to determine the demarcation within which the actors could perform. Bhupen Khakkars backdrop painting created changes in the way the director Manoj Shah envisaged the play and its movements on stage. The equations fell into place. This synthesis was the final cuisine of centuries of folk tradition and modern theatre culminating in the celebration of two mediums, each exerting their influence on the other generating changes as visual imagery bounced back and forth. Manoj had to unravel a lot that had been already worked on and refit it together in order to justify the influence Bhupens work was casting on the play.

But the resultant effect was brilliant as each medium enhanced the other and Master Phulmani was finally unveiled to an audience which to say the least freaked!

Thus a bond was established between artist and director and Gujarati theatre was enriched by that experiment. The bantering jugalbandi between artist and director took the better part of a decade and it changed forever the way Manoj Shah, the director tackled his medium as the parameters of acting were now demarcated within and by the boundaries set by the painter. And what of the painter? The actors and their ode of expressions had an insidiously profound effect on Bhupen Khakhars later series on ordinary people which now seemed to have stories to tell which went beyond the restrictions of the canvas frames.

After the success of Master Phulmani so enamored was Manoj by Bhupen’s work that when he staged Mareez, Manoj invited the artist Ghulam Shiekh to conceive the sets. The plastic cup of coffee was over and Manoj had already started fidgeting to get his actors up for rehearsals as they had a play to perform and stories to tell. Before wishing each other adieu I asked Manoj about the future, with a twinkle in eye he said it had to do with William Kotzwinkles, Dr Rat and Atul Dodiya the painter. We promised to track them both down the next time we had coffee together!
Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

On the Road to Nostalgia

2008-01-16T05:00:00.003+05:30

Ahmedabad is layers of multi hued kites each soaring in the air with different stories of past. So many different colors in the sky mirroring ever so many facets of the city. Some of the, aromas, colors, people and happenings no longer there, yet are so imbibed that the sense of magic has not really gone.

Gaze up at the colors in the air and one is reminded of the great balloon like tent of the circus; akin to a satellite from space taking its moorings on the dry river bed. As a child I remember the excitement of watching from the bridge as the skeletal frames of the big tents magically spouted out of the sands of the Sabarmati. Like the magic castles of the fairytales, I used to always wonder that if I turned my eyes away for an instant, the edifice will just sink away and appear somewhere else entirely. As child, I used to insist driving down Nehru Bridge at nights just to see this magnificent psychedelic city of moving lights and visions skirting the girders of Ellis Bridge. Then would come the great day when you drove right up to the dry river bed with an imposing metal structure of Ellis Bridge above you and were immediately exposed to a completely different world. As one stepped out and walked to the big tent feeling the sand under ones feet, one was assailed by the strangest of smells, whiffs of smoke and the aromas of a place so foreign and alien, that you wanted o hug the first parent next to you and the same time run and be part of the great adventure. Elephants, camels, horses, lions, tigers, dogs and walruses, performers in various modes of transformation all coveting in languages strange and exotic.

Such are the memories which assail me now, as I probably looked away for an instance and this childhood image was gone. Driving down Ashram Road at night in search of similar colorful memories, memories of a road replete with cinema halls each with its loyal audience. The theater Nataraj while playing host to classic English cinema had the only softy ice cream machine thus enhancing the entire experience. People congregated from all over considering the amount of cinema halls on the road; this was no multiplex, it was more like a multi street. As one drives past today the names roll like ghost images, Deepali, Shiv, Shree, Ajanta, Elora, and may be some more. It was a great stretch of road with imposing film posters done in oils, each having the signature of the painter intricately disguised within the action. Though Deepali cinema has involved into a multiplex, Citigold, the rest have vanished into the sand of concretized time. With the passing of time film poster painters gradually vanished as other possibilities took over. With their demise the theaters soon followed soot in sympathy of the extinction of an urban art form, which preceded which can form the basis of an interesting debate.

Across the street from the Nataraj ice cream shop was Delight, a name which still exists today. It used to be a shop which advertised Coca- Cola, served at the perfect temperature. People gathered there took their Coke bottles and move towards rhythm house, a basement record shop where Tempton played the most mind blowing protest music. This made every one ready to go up to Nataraj and watch Vietnam News reels. This was of course the early seventies; the city of Ahmedabad was lot different then; better or worse is a matter of personal opinion. At the end of the last show late at night there was always the news to the rescue. Times of India, with its maska ban, omelets and chai. The aroma of which mingled with the fresh smells of a hot newspaper. Those were the days when the newspaper press was on the ground floor of the existing office building. As the façade was glass you could see the new being printed while sipping masala chai.

In sharp contrast was Chiman Giddhar Road, C.G.Road! A street of stately large mansions with vast garden spaces. There was always a bungalow and it still is; a bungalow painted in geru (brick red). It soon became a postal landmark thus forcing the owners never to change the color. ‘Lal Bungla’ is what it is called, possibly the only old landmark that remains on that road. The Navrangpura Municipal Market was a small shopping center and not the major market that it is today. At some point glass and steel replaced the green, temperatures increased as congestion grew.

Now driving across Ellis Bridge, one often feels that one had indeed looked away and the city has changed. Yet all things must pass and if you only look, you can hear music wafting the through the air, the aroma of good tea, and the same warmth in the people. The traffic is noisy, there are more cars, and the footpaths are as colorful as ever. C.G.Road is one vast never ending riot of colors with shopkeepers and people buying and selling. So many happy people, so many colors a mirror image of the kites in the equinox sky!
Published: Ahmedabad Mirror

Chronicles of Sabarmati River

2008-01-02T18:39:00.003+05:30

It was on the banks of the Sabarmati one morning, that an exiled king discovered a reason for building a city which, through the years has acquired a penchant for surviving through political and cultural upheavals. Ahmedabad has embraced diverse people and cultures in its constant search for growth, and therein lays its ability for survival. Originating in the Aravalis and culminating at Khambat, Sabarmati has been a living, vibrant source of trade and commerce bringing in much wealth and culture to the city of Ahmedabad.

Digging below the foundation stones of the city that Ahmed Shah built, one discovers the presence of an even older civilization that takes the chronological history of Ahmedabad further back in time. Like all other ancient civilizations, the banks of the Sabarmati caught the fancy of a wandering tribe and urged them to build a home. Puranic references place the Sabarmati on par with the Ganga. The Mahabharata, in fact, states that the same Sage Dedhichi whose bones fashioned the 'Vajra' (weapon) for the god king Indra, meditated at Dudheswar. Incidentally, Dudheswar seems to have lent itself to modern use, for it was here that the first storage facility for water was built by the Ahmedabad Municipality in 1891.

The Padma Puranas hail the Sabarmati as 'Sabarmati Mahatmya' and though the sanctity of the river is entirely questionable now, Puranic references serve to furnish us with concrete indications of the land, its ancestry and the fact that there existed a ‘godly’ city in the region.

This city thrived as a vibrant river valley civilization, dynasties came and went and the river continued to serenely float down. As the charkha of time turns, its spokes measure the fortunes and dynasties of people; this city changed hands many a time and yet it endured. From the Bhils to the Solankis, the Sultanate to the Mughals, the Marathas and the British; each fell in love with what the Sabarmati had to offer. And each christened the city in their own likeness. The names are cascading poetry; Asha Bhils Ashapalli, Karnadev Solankis Karnavati and Ahmed Shahs Ahmedabad. Dynasties came and went, trade prospered and the river endured a silent spectator to the gamut of history.

Interestingly for Ahmedabad today, a tributary of the Sabarmati once flowed through the commercial bustle of Manek Chowk. It is for this reason that the mausoleums of Ahmed Shah, his wife and other royal women were constructed on adjacent shores. There they stand today with a road and numerous hawkers dividing them, Rani and Badshah na Hajira, with the river having moved on.

The Sabarmati which witnessed rise and fall of military kingdoms also gave sanctuary to Gandhi's spirit of non-violence, and kindled the virgin flames of the struggle for freedom. You shut your eyes and reminisce the sound and light show at the Gandhi Ashram, surrounded as you are by delightful photographs, a chronological history of Gandhi housed in a post modern structure conceived by Charles Correa. I know of a Frenchman, a friend of mine who rode into the ashram on a white steed to exchange marriage vows with the Sabarmati as a witness.

An enlightened river, a city of tolerance and expectance Ahmedabad played host to a motley crew of intellectually aware people from all over the world during the 60s. Bressons footprints on the dry river bed daintily avoiding the undulating sheets of dyed fabric; fabric being the textile soul of Ahmedabad. The camera in his hands documenting for posterity the songs and stories of the river. Bernard Kohn the architect during the same period was visualizing the French Riviera on the banks of the Sabarmati therefore connecting it to the Seine. A gentle intermingling of ideas and water eventually leading to that humongous extravaganza which is the River Front Project today!

Then as well as now, In spite of human endeavor to shape the river to their ends, the Sabarmati is a strong psychological barrier as it physically bisects the so called old and new cities of Ahmedabad. The river is an open reservoir of tales which she sings in harmony with the winds as she flows on for a never ending debate with the oceans. Since earliest times she was a life giver, essential for human settlements to flourish. Time flows; today those reasons no longer seem important and we try to impose our sense of order and our modern fairytales on a tolerant, Gandhian Sabarmati!

Published:Ahmedabad Mirror