Back on the road: Ahmedabad, and the ruined things!

Sometimes things get written even before you write them. This is a story about one such trip. The trip that I could have easily jeopardized, or ruined.?

The meticulous planning:

“What is the travel plan? Travel from A to B using any mode of travel. Improvise when required.” — this has always been my modus operandi while travelling.?

So I began planning my trip — meaning booking trains & hotels, and figuring out what to do once I reach there. Let the road take you where you need to go.

Where to go??

Patan, Gujarat.?

Rani ki Vav — The inverse temple:

Patan is a small town with an incredible inverse temple — a temple that has been built from top to bottom by digging the earth from ground level and building the temple one step down at a time, slowly but steadily, which took almost 41 years to complete the development starting from 1022 AD.?

Rani ki Vav is one of a kind temple — for its architecture (who builds a temple upside down?) and the reason why it got built. The temple was built by Queen Udayamati (hence the name, Rani ki Vav aka Step-well of the Queen) in memory of her husband.?

I got to know about the reason behind why it was built recently only — I had already visited the temple a few years back without that knowledge. Knowing such things does change your perspective of something that you already admire.

The last time when I went to Patan, I commuted via Bus. From the bus station, Rani ki Vav was 3 Km. Up and down — 6 Km. I didn’t have the energy to walk to the step-well after a 3-hour journey on road.?

I decided to take an auto-rickshaw to the step-well. I found an auto rickshaw with an analogue fare meter which seemed slightly younger than the step-well. The auto-driver was ok to drop me at the step-well and again bring me back to the bus station for 100 rupees. Not bad. Pretty reasonable actually. This is one of the qualities that I look up to in the auto-rickshaw drivers in Ahmedabad and Patan — they are reasonable. Not greedy and arrogant, unlike the auto folks in Bangalore and Chennai.

When we reached the step well, I asked the old auto-driver to stay back for a while. He said, “Take your time to see the temple.”

I jokingly then asked, “What if I don’t return this way and run away without paying you?”

He simply said, “You can run away without me noticing you. But, how would you get away from the gaze of the One who sees all?” I didn’t have the answer to his question and just responded with a smile. (Don’t remember the exact conversation but something like the above happened.)

I returned after one hour and met with the auto-driver who then dropped me at the bus station.?

During this trip, I was ruminating about the old auto driver, wishing to stumble across him. I could see neither the old auto nor the driver. Above all the One who sees all was also not there. It seemed deserted — no one was there.

That was that.

The stepwell was there, still standing majestically, beautifully against the tides of time.?

Ahmedabad & Architecture:

The very first time I heard Ahmedabad and Architecture in a single sentence was in Maniratnam’s Ok Kanmani, the original version of Ok Jaanu. One of the protagonists in the movie was an Architect. Hence the need in the movie to insert Ahmedabad and Architecture in the same sentence. That’s how I learned about the monuments aka the ruined buildings of Ahmedabad.

I have always been into ruined buildings, and Ahmedabad has been surrounded by many of those. Blink once on the road while walking, you will miss a couple of monuments during the heritage walk in Ahmedabad.

After visiting Patan on day 1 of the trip, I didn’t know what else to do in Ahmedabad. Yes, I wanted to visit the Sun Temple in Modhera — but it would require me to travel another 50–60 Km from Patan. I didn’t have the energy to travel more. So I returned to Ahmedabad.

After a sumptuous lunch at Moti Mahal (I sought refuge for food there as it was the only decent place where I could get non-vegetarian), I resumed my nomadic pursuits of exploring Ahmedabad. I strolled without any purpose — and, found Bhadra Fort, Jama Masjid, and Aghasiye in the evening.

While entering the Jama Masjid, I removed my Fastrack cooler and kept it inside my shoulder bag — I forgot to bring the glass case. A few minutes later once I left the Masjid, I tried to find the glass. Found it in multiple pieces, broken. The glass that I had been using for the last 5 years broke — leaving a schism in my view, literally.

Those unheard melodies are sweeter:

I ended up having dinner at Aghasiye, under the roof of the restaurant on the second floor. I loved the ambience more than the food.?

I was shocked when I tasted the dal. Not every food item should taste like dessert, man. The sweet dal moment was equivalent to the moment that I first tasted sambhar in Bangalore.?

Why so sweet?

Letting the road guide you:

The next day again I had no plans — since I loved the quietness of the Gandhi Ashram, I thought of finishing Mexican Gothic, a horror novel that I had been reading for the last few days, there.?

I visited the bookshop at the Ashram and was skimming through a book called, “A walking tour: Ahmedabad” by Gregory Bracken & Mathijs Van Oostrum with beautiful sketchings of the monuments of Ahmedabad, and I came across a stepwell called “Amritavarshini” near the Ahmedabad railway station, and I went to the exact google location — it would take some time for you to find the stepwell as it was surrounded by so many shops. It was worth visiting though. And, then I found another stepwell called Dai Halima Vav and visited it. This is the stepwell that is featured in Ok Kanmani, I believe.

Enough about step-wells.

How to jeopardize the trip:

Let me rewind a little bit: What happened at the beginning of the trip?

I reached the Bandra station at 6:30 pm, well ahead of time: my train to Ahmedabad was supposed to start at platform no 4 at 7:40 pm. I always have this anxiety about reaching the station/airport on time — I have a history of making colossal, life-altering mistakes when I go through insomnia. Now, insomnia was back, working sleeplessly.

Previously, I’ve booked flights, and trains on the wrong dates and ended up waiting 24 hours earlier at the airports and sometimes even boarded the wrong trains, and paid a hefty fine to the train ticket examiner because of the mistakes I make during my insomniac episodes.?

This time I reached on time, waiting for the right train (if you want to know, it is Lokshakti Express!) on the right date.?

I was waiting for the train to reach the platform. My patience was running out.

I started panicking after 7 pm. The train was supposed to start at 7:40 pm. I saw no sign of the train. I felt something amiss — call it intuition or the self-realization of making a mistake. I checked with a shopkeeper at a tea shop on the platform.?

“It starts from Bandra Terminus, and you’re at Bandra Station.” said the shopkeeper.

That’s when I realized that there are two Bandra stations: Bandra Terminus for intercity trains, and Bandra Railway Station for intracity trains.?

Bandra Terminus — not to be confused with Bandra Railway Station says the Wikipedia page. Too late!

The shopkeeper then said, “Don’t even think about going to Bandra Terminus. You might have a chance to catch the train to Ahmedabad if you go to Andheri (the next stop where the Ahmedabad train stops) by catching the next local fast train that comes. You might!”

I didn’t want to give up on the trip — I decided to pursue the train via another train. The local fast train that the shopkeeper asked me to take was extremely crowded — as expected. (I think they would shut down the rail lines if they were not crowded.) Somehow I managed to get on the local train — Once I got on the train — my digital wristwatch broke due to so much hassling and mini stampeding that I went through. Watch was not crowd-proof I guess.

I asked a fellow passenger on the train, “Which side to get down for Andheri?”

“To your right. But they will not let you get down till Borivali (the next to next stop). There will be too much crowd in Andheri.”

I told him I had to catch another train to Ahmedabad at Andheri.?

I checked my broken digital watch (not a smartwatch) — it showed 7:25 pm. 15 minutes to board the train to Ahmedabad.?

Luckily the train reached Andheri station in another couple of minutes. I got off the train with so much might and ran. I ran towards the platform to board the train to Ahmedabad.?

I reached the right platform at the right station on time, finally.

The train to Ahmedabad reached the right platform after a 15-minute delay at almost 8 pm. And, I boarded the train to Ahmedabad without any of the adrenaline rushes that I went through a few minutes back.