Ahmedabad Diary

The only way I can begin to enjoy traveling because of work, and traveling with any of my colleagues/partners, is if I start staying back in the city of our visit more frequently. At least if I am visiting the place on a Friday. I did that last weekend in case of Ahmedabad.

Ahmedabad is an interesting city. Not necessarily nice or bad, just interesting, curious. It almost feels like a castrated one. It was a weird feeling when I realized around 7:30pm the first night that I can't have a can of beer even if I was willing to pay 500 bucks for it.

This feeling of something missing was added to by the fact that I was staying at a place where room-service wasn't allowed. So, unlike most other hotels I have stayed at alone in the last few years, here I could not watch TV or a movie on my comp, sipping beer and having tandoori chicken in my room.

But, I still enjoyed the visit. For one, I have not slept so much over one weekend since I joined work, except maybe the fortnight in August when I was ill. I was staying on the IIMA New Campus, at their Management Development Centre there, which is as good as a 3-Star Hotel. If one ignores that small room-service thing. My room was extremely comfortable and very cosy, unlike the general impersonal feeling one gets in most hotels. And I had a lot of time on my hands to strangle and flog and kill.

The campus itself is really beautiful. Not beautiful in the same way as IIMC's is, but in a more functional, utilitarian way. IIMC would be a great campus maybe if I was studying how to make films, but IIMA looks like a management school. As I told a friend, I am still not convinced that IIMA's students or faculty or curriculum are any better than B and C's, but it sure does kick the other schools' ass when it comes to infra. Even B, which ranks much higher than C in this regard, and probably only in this regard, pales in comparison to A.

Didn't do too much sight-seeing, partly because everyone seemed convinced that there isn't much in Ahmedabad to see. I am not completely bought on that point yet.

I was quite surprised to see that bookstores are quite popular in Ahmedabad. Somehow had never associated Gujarat with being a booklovers' haven.

The auto wallahs there were also a welcome relief from Bangalore's and Delhi's. Most of the autos have this weird meter, which I didn't even notice the first couple of times.

There were two-three other observations that I had made earlier but got to confirm this time. Gujjus seem to go out with their extended families a lot more than any other community I have seen. It's very common to see at least three generations of a family hanging out together in malls, in restaurants, near lakes (I visited two during the weekend), eating at thela-wallahs (and there are more here again than I have seen in any other city) and everywhere else.

The other thing is something, which I wasn't sure too many people notice, but the person I told this seemed to have observed this too. There's this very strong fashion trend of wearing really low-back kurtis/blouses/tops/whatever else falls in that category, across economic groups. I generally won't notice a fashion statement even if you wrote it down and made me read it, but this was really that noticeable. No judgment, just an observation.

PDA is also more common here than anywhere else I have seen. While other BJP-governed states were witnessing idiotic acts of moral policing, tens of couples were moving about holding hands, sitting together and doing a lot else, in public places without any concern from anyone.

Maybe Modi should come to power at the Centre. Everyone in Ahmedabad seems to think so, at least.