The India Chronicles 2000-2001

Swaminayar Temple door, Bhuj

So, everyone ate too much turkey, drank too much wine and got too many presents, but I trust that Christmas and New Year's Eve were successful. Now you can start those diets and exercise programs!

(This note was to have been sent from Ahmedabad, but the server was only up long enough to read our mail and died when I was ready to send this episode. We have now taken train from Ahmedabad (10 1/2 hrs) to Jalgaon, a small town near the caves of Ajanta.)

We are back in Ahmedabad after an enjoyable tour of the state of Gujarat. We found the people friendly and the area much less touristy than the majority of places we have visited in India. Ahmedabad in a large city with the attendant dirt and dust and pollution, especially from auto rickshaw fumes, but it is lower key than many of India's large cities. Laurie Ham, the daughter of our friends Tom & Dale Ham, spent a year here working for the Aga Khan foundation and told us not to expect too much English. That is true of all the signs, but thankfully we have found people who speak English and are helpful. We first arrived in Ahmedabad via a bus trip from Udaipur on December 13, but we only stayed overnight. We wanted to visit the town of Bhuj and explore the Kutch (or Kachchh) region, and we discovered that the only daytime transportation available was a train the next morning at 6:40. We couldn't reserve a seat as the train originated in Delhi and was already enroute when we made our inquiries. We were told we would be able to make a last minute reservation if we were at the station at 5:00 AM. We showed up as instructed only to be told that we had to wait until the train arrived and get a reservation from the conductor after all, and the train was already 1 1/2 hours late! So much for an early start. We had no option but to wait patiently, albeit sleepily. Well, we were finally on our way at 9:00 AM in a slightly rickety coach, but at least it was not crowded. The most interesting part of the trip was crossing the extensive salt plains and watching the salt retrieval operations. We passed the time reading and playing cards until 4:00 PM when we arrived in Gandhidham. From there it was a 1-1/2 hour bus ride to Bhuj. Ray told me he hoped the visit would be worth the long travelling time. It was.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the Kutch region and our Guesthouse owners were most helpful. The first day we just explored the relatively quiet town of Bhuj. It has the requisite city walls and palace turned into a museum, plus a busy bazaar and market area, but very few other foreign tourists. The old palace, the Aina Mahal, has a great collection of paintings and glass candelabra collected by the various maharaos of Kutch. The new palace (19th century construction), however, was notable only from the view of the town from its clock tower. The main building housed a moth-eaten collection of hunting trophies.

We met a couple at dinner the first night and discovered he was from Vancouver. Jeff and his wife Claire, who is Irish, now live in Santiago, Chile, where he is a geologist. Claire had preceded Jeff to India to attend Yoga workshops in Pune, near Bombay, and planned to stay on to attend more workshops in Bangalore. We shared a car and driver/guide on Saturday to explore villages and their handicraft specialties south of Bhuj. Our guide, Ab Sakur, told us that the manner of dress, culture and even language changes every 36 K and we were about to witness these differences. Soon after we started we came upon a nomadic tribe of people, the Rabari. The women wore elaborate gold jewelry and were dressed in black skirts and tops that were covered in richly coloured embroidery. Even their little boy had large gold earrings and wore a colourful blue out f it. Our driver stopped and spoke to the men who were shepherding a large flock of sheep and goats to see if we could photograph them. They were just packing up to move to the next grazing field and all their meager belongings were piled on high bed-like platforms ready to be transported on the backs of camels or ponies. The men wanted to be paid for posing, but we are not professionals and declined. Ray had already taken one picture anyway, so we lucked out.

As we were passing through one town, Ab Sakur pointed out a tree by the side of the road. It was festooned with very large bats, sleeping through the day. Jeff said these were called fox bats in Australia. We tried not to waken them.

Our main stop in the morning was a family block printing operation. They use a batik method with melted wax and hand carved wooden blocks and were just setting up to demonstrate for us when we arrived. Claire remarked on the primitive methods they use to dye the cloth after the wax designs are applied and subsequent boiling water bath to remove the wax. No rubber gloves here to protect their hands. We also visited the family next door who do screen printing. The block printing family act as brokers for several area cottage industries, so while we enjoyed a cup of chai, the sweet Indian tea, we were shown samples of their work. It really was quite good and inexpensive so we went away with their home made shopping bags full of hand printed bedspreads and tie dyed materials.

Just after leaving the village, Ab Sakur stopped to talk to a farmer who invited us to visit his family and their fruit orchards nearby. He hopped in the car and directed us to his home where we were greeted by a gang of children, his own and nieces and nephews. Three of the little girls, who were between five and ten years old, wore large flat silver necklaces, indicating that they were engaged. The villages don't leave these matters up to chance.

Nearby, their mother rocked her baby in a wooden swing. We were treated to a fresh coconut each to drink while we walked around admiring the many coconut, tamarind, papaya, mango and banana trees.

It was getting late in the morning and we were hungry so we drove to the port town of Mandavi to have lunch atthe fancifully named Zorba the Buddha Restaurant. This was obviously a local favourite, with good reason, and it was crowded with people enjoying one of the best Thalis we have had so far. It even included fruit salad. Mandavi has an active ship building industry so after lunch we got to see how large teak wood fishing boats, capable of withstanding the oceans, are constructed by hand using traditional methods.

We also drove a few K out of town to walk on the beach. No one was swimming, but fishermen were drying their catch on racks at the edge of the beach and a flock of shorebirds was fishing in the water. Amongst them were a pair of flamingos that kept a respectable distance, but didn't fly away, when Ray approached them. These birds were mostly white with the familiar salmon pink colour bordering their wings. I'm told the colour is a fact or of the quantity of shrimp they feed on. That was it for the day so we drove back to Bhuj in time for our driver to take his sons to the mosque for Ramadan services, but we made a date to meet him again the next day for another tour.

Sunday it was just Ray and I with Ab Sakur, as Jeff and Claire were heading out of town to their next destination. This was our day to visit villages north of Bhuj where the topography is more like the desert of Rajasthan, not as cultivated as the area we visited farther south.

Our first stop was the village of Bhirendiara, but you won't find it on any map as it is really a road side bus stop with a few kiosks selling snacks. On Ab Sakur's instructions, we bought hard candies to give to the children in the villages we were to visit. Ab Sakur varies the villages he visits to make sure they don't get too many tourists visiting and turn into show villages. Consequently, we didn't encounter any begging and the candies are a treat for the children. We drove on a rutted path a cross the dusty, desert sand to a Harijan (or Untouchable caste) village. Their houses are decorated on the outside with designs of peacocks and hearts in bright primary colours and the insides have embossed designs and small round mirrors on the clay walls.

The mirrors are supposed to ward off evil spirits by scaring them when they see their reflected image. The women wear a gathered, circular skirt and a short sleeved, backless over blouse. The blouse is made of colourful materials and each has its own unique embroidered design that incorporates lots of mirrors.

Over the whole outfit they wear a long gauzy scarf, but unlike the Rajasthani women, they are not required to cover their faces. After visiting several of their homes, we accepted their offer of chai and since this village acts as brokers for their neighbour's work, we admired their display of embroidered goods for sale. I even ended up buying a few items again.

From the Harijan village, we walked to a neighbouring Muslim village. They decorate their houses even more flamboyantly than the Harijans and several of them were works of art. Some of their houses are round huts with a thatched roof. The ceiling inside was lined with wooden poles and the entire surface was painted with the same bright colours as the exteriors. The villagers keep sheep, cattle and goats and sell the milk. They also make charcoal, so on our way out, Ab Sakur bought, for Rs 80, a large bag of charcoal that just fit into the trunk of his taxi.

elaborately painted door

Girl next to her decorated house

We drove from there back towards Bhuj, stopping in a farm compound in the village of Hodka. The people here use dung and natural dyes in earth tones to decorate their homes and they do hand embroidered and beaded leather work. Nice work, but I didn't succumb.

We visited another farm to see their hand weaving and then ended the day at the most ramshackle and poorest village we have seen to date. Instead of the neatly kept farm compounds we had seen, this one had garbage piled beside huts that looked in danger of collapsing. They also had the largest number of small children, all with snotty noses and unkempt hair. There was an old man lying on a cot who looked as if he was living his last day on earth. He was being tended carefully by several of the women. This village does very nice lacquer work on wooden implements and toys. One of the men demonstrated their technique using a hand driven lathe to turn a chapati rolling pin and melt the lacquer colours onto its surface. Each one is different and quite attractive, so I selected a few to bring home with me.

That was enough for one day and that was the end of our visit to Bhuj and the Kutch. Except that I ended up buying more items from a shop in Bhuj. We saw several very different villages and lifestyles, but we only touched the surface of this area. You could spend a week here and not see the same place twice, plus go home with lots of beautiful craft ware.

Continued...Next: Episode 5: Page 2