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The old city of Ahmedabad, India
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Traveling to a country for the first time brings with it a sense of excitement, weariness, and sometimes dread. One inevitably travels to a country with a set of preconceptions in mind that might be either very right or very wrong.
I’ve begun to learn to remove any preconceptions about a country from my head and focus merely on discovering a country as if I’ve never heard nor read about it. Not an easy job, but it seems to be working.
The excitement comes from the thrill of discovery and adventure. Weariness comes from the long journey there and everything it takes before even getting on a plane, from buying plane tickets in time for the trip, getting the necessary visas and vaccinations, and figuring out whether to take winter clothes or summer clothes and the whole packing frenzy.
What is the one thing about a country that can leave you with a positive or a negative impression as you leave? Is it how comfortable its accommodations are? How good the food is? How interesting its history is? How well kept its national monuments are? The museums? The art? The culture? I say it’s none of the above. If there is one thing that leaves that indelible impression which makes up my mind to tell my family and friends that I had a wonderful or an awful time, or something in between, it’s the people.
The people of Ahmedabad, India, my latest travel escapade, left me longing to go back for more. Everyone must, at least once in his or her life, visit India. I’ve frequently heard that from others. I’ve watched Indian movies with interest and watched Hollywood movies about India with awe. There’s something absolutely majestic about the country. It could very well be its rich and long history. It could just as well be its fabulous temples and mosques with their intricate designs and grandiosity. I believe from my brief visit to the region of Gujarat, however, that it is the people who formed that history, the people that built the grand temples and mosques give the country the magic and charm that is so frequently divulged by those that visit India.
Sam is the Man
Shyamamand Lakhani, a Gujarati tour guide whom I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with, is a person I will never forget for the remainder of my life. How many people pass us by in our lives and leave that kind of impression? Shyamamand introduced himself to our small group on a hot Gujarati winter morning as Sam O’Neill. “It’s easier for people to remember,” he explained, and I must admit it’s true.
Sam was responsible for taking us to visit only two sites in Ahmedabad, a mosque and a temple. His intense descriptions of the history, the architecture, and, even more importantly, the religious background of the practices performed inside these holy shrines remain etched in my mind.
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The Sidi Bashir Mosque
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The Shaking Minarets
The Sidi Bashir Mosque, where he first took us, was built in AD 1450, he explained. It is home to the only two remaining shaking minarets in Ahmedabad. The minarets, standing 21.42 meters high, are intricately designed with three stories of balconies lying above the mosque’s main archway. Sam explained that if two people ascended one minaret, each standing on opposite sides, alternatively pushing the stone structure with both hands, the minaret would be felt to shake. Not only that, but a person standing on the opposite minaret would feel that minaret shaking too. The dizzy sensation that arises as a result actually caused a foreign tourist to fall to his doom from one of the minarets a few years ago. This led Indian authorities to decide to close off the minarets from future ascent. Hoping to discover the mystery behind the shaking effect, colonial British rules dismantled one of the minarets in vain. According to Sam, however, the shaking effect is probably due to the use of a special kind of sandstone in the foundation of the minarets, allowing one to vibrate when the other is shaken. Not only is the secret of the shaking minarets of the Sidi Bashir Mosque shrouded in mystery, but the actual builder of the mosque is too. The mosque is named after Sidi Bashir, a favorite slave of Sultan Ahmed Shah I, the founder of Ahmedabad. It is believed, however, that the actual builder was Malik Sarang, a famous architect and nobleman of the times.
Inside the Jain Temple
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The Hathee Singh Jain Temple
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My favorite part of the trip, however, was not my visit to the mosque. It was our visit to the Hathee Singh Jain Temple, built by Shri Kesarisimha Hathee Singh Shah in 1848. This temple has exquisite carvings in white marble and is dedicated to Dharmanath, the 15th Jain apostle.
What impressed me most were not the delicately carved oblong domes that surround the inner courtyard, nor the grandiose gateway that admits the temple’s visitor into its sanctuary. I was most impressed, again, with Sam. Sam is a Jain himself, and explained to our group in great detail the basics of Jainism—an agnostic religion with lesser deities—and its practices.
Using grains of rice available from the inner part of the temple, Sam formed the Jain symbol, which looks like a mirror image of the Swastika sign. The Jain symbol’s four limbs stand for religion, health, work, and salvation, he explained. Sam then explained the significance of the “om” sign, and the five enemies that Jainism encourages its followers to conquer: kama, lobha, moha, ahamkara, and krodha, which he translated to sex, attachment to children, greed, egoism, and anger.
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The Jain symbol looks like a mirror image of the Swastika sign
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Standing in the middle of the inner temple, with fellow Jains paying homage to the jeweled statue representing the deity Ganesh, Sam gave our group an intense and elaborate presentation of Jainism, complete with Jain incantations and meditation practices. With his voice echoing deeply in this stone-walled chamber, and his arms rhythmically rising and falling, the group, and his fellow Jains, listened with awe as this slight-built man, roughly 40 years old, sang with a passion that can only arise from sincere belief. It is because of his daily meditation practices, Sam claimed, that he is able to know the personality of each and every one of us. The small ponytail he prides at the back of his head, he said, acts like an antenna that receives vibrations from people and objects around him.
Sam’s illustrious demonstration not only gained the respect of our small tour group, but also received a warm welcome from his fellow Jains. One man hugged Sam, another gave him a strong handshake, and yet another seemed to be congratulating him with a huge, appreciative smile.
Back in the bus, I couldn’t fight back my curiosity and I asked Sam to show me what he does to know people’s personalities. Giving me a smile of sincerity and self-assuredness, Sam took off his shoes and wrapped his head with an immaculately clean handkerchief he had in one of his jacket pockets. Closing his eyes and seeming to go into a deep trance, he clapped his hands and rubbed them together, repeating this three times, breathing deeply and calmly between each clap. Finally, he removed the handkerchief from his head, and looked at me. “You are a very pious woman,” he said. “Your life is a simple one, with few problems. You are an easy-going person and very polite. You also give much to charity,” he concluded.
I must ashamedly assure you that Sam was incorrect on most accounts, and that I only look like I’m all of the above. But this simple man’s strong belief in his religion, and his passionate endeavor to explain his faith to an unknowing group of foreigners hit a soft spot in my heart.
A Most Hospitable Folk
Ahh! The enchanting people of Ahmedabad! Earlier that morning, another guide, an architect by profession, was taking us on a walk through the streets and monuments of the old city. Passing through the narrow alleyways that characterize this part of the city, we hesitantly peered into the open doors of the homes that lined the streets, wondering how people lived in this foreign land. Noticing our evident curiosity, our guide surprised us by randomly choosing one of the open doors and asking the woman sitting near the threshold if we could take a look inside.
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On a walk through the streets of the old city
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I had never previously considered the possibility of visiting the home of a total stranger while traveling abroad, whether in the company of a tour guide or otherwise. The concept itself had never materialized in my head. But in this small town in Western India, most frequently mentioned in the media for its outbursts of communal violence, the residents of Ahmedabad were the warmest and most welcoming bunch of folk I had ever come across on my many travels.
Standing inside the courtyard that is characteristic of many homes in the old city, with children timidly but gleefully peering from behind the doorways at the group of strangers, our guide explained how these homes have been inherited through many generations, and divided time and time again between sons and daughters. As a result, instead of one large home surrounding the inner courtyard, a number of smaller apartments have arisen, with several families sharing the enclosed compact open space.
Ahmedabad’s Attention Grabbers
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An auto-rickshaw is the cheapest transportation in the city.
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Looking back at the things that most attract our attention when we first visit a country can be an amusing exercise. The number of motorcycles on Ahmedabad roads was something I found most remarkable. Ahmedabad residents seem to find motorcycles a cheaper and more practical solution for quickly getting around the city. During my short stay in the city, I just couldn’t get over the number of women riding motorcycles. Women of all ages clad in saris and salwar kameezes of all colors of the rainbow, sometimes veiling their faces from the wind and dust, confidently roam the streets of the city, side by side with their male counterparts.
This was also my first time to experience the renowned auto-rickshaw. This three-wheeled buggy, a more advanced, motorized version of the man-pulled rickshaw of olden times, is the cheapest form of transportation in the city. A word of advice to my fellow foreigners, though, if you have a slipped disc, do not, I repeat, do not, use the auto-rickshaw as a means of transportation. For that matter, if you even remotely fear ending up with a slipped disc, do not get on an auto-rickshaw.
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Monkeys sunbathe on rooftops of mosques
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I’m probably over-dramatizing this, but my personal experience was that riding in an auto-rickshaw for more than five minutes can be very painful and distressing. With no shock absorbers and thin wheels, my three-wheeled taxi let me feel every single piece of gravel. How the auto-rickshaw drivers manage to avoid bumping into one another the way they drive is beyond me. During the ride, I kept getting this image of bumper cars in amusement parks during the ride.
Most auto-rickshaws in Ahmedabad are what residents call three-seaters. These three-seaters should actually only fit two people, but I am told that a three-seater is commonly used to seat up to 10 people and, according to my Indian friends, the six-seaters in other cities actually seat up to 20 people! I had the unfortunate experience of riding in a three-seater with only four people on board, not including the driver. One of our friends had to sit in the lap of her colleague with the rest of us all squeezed together to manage that!
Ahmedabad, with its monkeys freely swinging from tree to tree or sunbathing on the rooftops of mosques, and its cows proudly roaming the streets with not a worry in mind, and more importantly its residents, who leave the visitor feeling at home and longing to return, is definitely a city to remember. |
