Bhadra Fort and Gate, Ahmedabad (Circa 1411) Photos: MC
After writing 45,000 words more than a decade ago, I have been dragging my feet on my book about Ahmedabad. The expectation is that my current visit to the city after nine years will not only revive the biography but even propel me to wrap it up.
As part of that revival, this afternoon I decided to loaf around the heart of Ahmedabad in Manek Chowk, between the Bhadra Fort and Sultan Ahmad Shah I’s mausoleum; Ahmad Shah being the founder of the city in 1411. Today happens to be the 613th anniversary of Ahmedabad’s founding.
Manek Chowk was always a sensory overload for as long as I remember. The two predominant fragrances of Manek Chowk are a mélange of incense from the Bhadrakali Temple and the loban dhoop from around Badshah Aney Rani No Haziro (the mausoleums of the sultan and his queen). Between the two fragrant bookends lies a whole range of olfactory and auditory experiences.
Speaking of auditory experiences, decades were rewound for me in minutes while navigating through the often stiflingly narrow lanes as vendors asked me, “Bolo saheb, shun lesho?” (Tell me, sir, what would you like to buy?) It is very nearly a rhetorical question since the vendors do not wait for you to answer. It is like a reflex action for them.
One vendor, who was lovingly stacking up brassieres by stiffening their cups into little hills, asked me “Bolo saheb lesho?”
“Hun bra nathi pehrto, (I do not wear a bra),” I said.
He laughed and said, “Pan Bhabhi to pehrta hashe ne. (But your wife -- me being his presumed brother meant my putative wife would be his presumed Bhabhi or sister-in-law -- must wear it.)”
“She has many bras but thank you,” I said and continued towards the Haziro.
During my last visit nine years ago, I vividly remember sensing a great deal of disquiet around Ahmed Shah’s tomb. The chapter about Manek Chowk describes that feeling thus: “The air around the tomb seemed to be trembling with a certain menace and pain.” The feeling was no different this time around too.
What I found particularly remarkable for me personally was that I slipped into the hubbub and frenzy of Manek Chowk without missing a step or a heartbeat. It was as if I had never left it. The clinching evidence of that was the ease with which I zigzagged and jaywalked through the utterly unruly traffic. It was as if Tetris was on steroids. In fact, I paused in the middle of the road to admire myself for a moment.