Monday, August 28, 2006

And some more....

Returning to Ahmedabad, my home city, after almost three years of being away takes some getting used to. The traffic in the streets is overwhelming, there is the constant screech of honking from the interminable stream of two-wheelers & cars & buses flowing merrily down the narrow street. It's a brave soul that walks down these roads, I am thinking, as I try to take the furthest edge of the road, so as not to become just another statistic on my first evening home. My husband though is very unwilling to be pushed to the unpaved edges, & insists on staking claim to the meager strip of paved road; and so we continue down....

I notice right away that at least we are not sharing the road with cows & buffaloes that too prefer to plant themselves bang in the middle of the dry paved roads, especially in these monsoon months. These animals are largely missing now from around my house, & I have to admit, I miss their sight! The next few days I am actually watching out for cows, donkeys, camels, & elephants, & I do manage to sight all of these. I remember a few years ago when we were visiting London, we paid about $10 apiece to visit the London zoo, only to see that the bulk of the animals there were what I used to see on the streets everyday back in Ahmedabad! In fact, add monkeys & peacocks to the list too; driving down the University road in Ahmedabad on this visit, we were forced to stop as a magnificent peacock strutted gracefully across the street.

The other major major change I notice is that the air is so much cleaner. Ahmedabad was infested with old, rickety auto-rickshaws, three-wheeled vehicles that raced across pot-holed streets, giving passengers a cheap but unforgettably bumpy ride. These rickshaws were noisy, & let off such angry black, malodorous fumes that one's eyes would sting from a short walk outdoors. Thankfully that has changed, we now have what are called 'green rickshaws', that run on CNG & are quiet enough so that one can actually have a conversation while riding in one of these!

The city buses too have switched to CNG; the streets are full of Toyotas, Hondas, Marutis, Fords, as also assorted scooters & motor cycles. The clean air has made it possible for chronic walkers like me & my husband to reclaim the outdoors. Our son, though, continues to wrinkle his nose at the mention of any physical activity!!

The monsoons have begun in earnest, & everyday brings heavy rains, slushy streets, cool breezes, & awful moisture-laden fruit & vegetables that spoil in very little time. Still Ahmedabad is lucky unlike Surat, that had Katrina-like flooding this past month; entire areas of the city were marooned & cut off for days on end.

I loved that most of the little shops around my house are still around. Everything looks familiar & comfortable in that respect. But there has been a burgeoning growth of shopping malls, restaurants, & some totally new fads for this once very conservative city: hookah joints. After an evening out with friends, one of our hosts offers to take us to an exciting coffee shop. Once there, we are told that the only available table they have is outdoors, & we take it. I couldn't for the life of me fathom what was exciting about this place to the college-going crowd, the primary consumers of these services. Our table was in a dark, damp corner, with some rain sneaking in through the covers overhead; there were mosquitoes for company. Through the glass doors, we could see young boys & girls sitting on relatively more-comfy chairs & sofas inside the cafe. Today they are having only coffee & snacks & conversation, but as we do a reconnaissance (a favorite term of my son's) of the innards of the 'cafe', we come to a floor that is given over to mattresses strewn across the floor. We are told this is where customers can lie around, puffing away on their hookahs. I later learn that hookahs are harmless contraptions, dispensing flavored water/ steam into willing mouths & noses. ( On our way back to the US via London, we see women as well as men puffing away on their hookahs along Little Beirut).

As I mentioned earlier, Ahmedabadis seem to be reveling in all the glitzy shopping malls all over the city, this once tight-fisted city simply can't seem to get enough of these. In fact, a cursory visitor to the city can be forgiven for thinking that all that the locals do is eat, drink ( not openly, though, for this is a dry state), & shop.

Everything is so expensive, or so it seems to me. I seem to be stuck in a time-warp as it were, and I am having to ask for the price to be repeated ever so often. The economic upswing has pushed up incomes, but has also resulted in sky-rocketing prices, as also insatiable demands for wage hikes by employees. This last fact is so missed by foreign clients getting work done in India, who believe it is their right to demand that work be done at rock-bottom prices.

We had an exciting, eye-opening visit to the RTO for a local driver's license. The process for getting this very basic piece of document is as obtuse & non-transparent as can be. The offices are dark, overcrowded, filthy, & it is impossible to figure out what is to be done next. Our guide/ tout leads us from one desk to another, confident that our job will be done. He informs us dismissively about the new computerised process that will be in place in the next few weeks: it won't work, he declares loftily; the computers have been bought, the company & a few politicians will have made their millions, & now the computers will gather dust, & things will continue as always at the RTO!

India is a foodie's delight, & we dig in every day into our favorite foods. After months, I am starting to enjoy drinking milk. Milk in the US is a horror, I am told it is because the cows are fed some concoction that is certainly not grass! ( This time around, now that I am back in the US & am determined not to buy regular milk here, I chance upon 'Organic milk'; this IS milk, trust me). The other thing that has added enormously to my temporal pleasures while in India is the multiplexes: they are ever so plush & enjoyable, have had a great time watching even indifferent movies here.

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