Sizzling Ahmedabad

The city where actions always spoke louder than words. Be it the ugly riots which marred Gujarat’s reputation of communal harmony or the non-violent practices of Gandhiji at the Sabarmati ashram. The day I had been to this city was action packed too. I got a chance to shake hands with the sexy bollywood damsel…Tanushree Datta ! She had come to the City Mall to inaugurate an outlet of “Barcelona & Liverpool”-a clothing retailer. She arrived in a white limousine and got a red carpet welcome! Added to this there was a music band waiting for her and truckloads of people to have her “Darshan” !! If this is how an upcoming star is treated, imagine Rajinikanth or SRK entering the scene !! Simply unbelievable..She was in her typical economic clothing truly to her fan’s expectations and she definitely didn’t let them down!

Myself and two of my friends had decided to visit this historic city on Sunday. We guys were doing our summer internship in Essar Power, Surat and decided to have masti for 1 day. Ahmedabad is 229kms from Surat. Being a rail fan, train was the obvious mode of transport to reach Ahmedabad .The train was to depart Surat at 0543 and hence we had to get ready by 0430 and leave SVNIT,Surat (the place we stayed during our intern period).

We got a share auto luckily and reached the station by 5am. After having some biscuits and tea we got into our train-Gujarat Queen Exp. The train was filled with people but since I had reserved a ticket, the journey was comfortable. The highlight of the journey was the crossing of the Narmada River (between Ankleshwar and Bharuch). The Bridge was massive in structure and was terribly long. The stations enroute included Vadodara (or Baroda) and Anand-the place where AMUL ( Anand Milk owners Union Ltd) is located. The station had many AMUL outlets. I quickly gulped some chocolate drink. While planning this trip I had a look at the topography of Ahmedabad with Google Earth’s help. I noted down the places to be seen and how to reach each of them. So I made a rough itinerary. According to that our first stop was at McDonald’s in City Mall. Unfortunately it was 1030 and McD opened only at noon ! So we had to settle for the infamous Domino’s Pizza. I ordered a medium size pizza, which cost me well over 120 bucks. This is where we were surprised to spot Tanushree.

After munching the pizzas we performed a quick fire window-shopping exercise at Big Bazaar. We then took an auto for our next destination- Sabarmati Ashram. It’s a very calm and peaceful environment over there, but somewhat not suited for the youth; it was meant for the middle and old aged. It had Gandhiji’s sayings and teachings inscribed all over in Gujarati with their translations provided. We took snaps and moved over to the riverbank adjacent to the ashram. It was a breezy location and we sat there for a while. We got to see Gandhiji’s room, handloom and walking stick. We were also briefed about Gandhiji’s life history in the form of a timeline. We then moved out to take a bus to Gandhinagar (34kms from Ahmedabad). We had planned to visit the famed Akshardham Temple of the Swaminarayan sect. As we reached Akshardham, we were told that cameras, mobiles, bottles, belts, etc were prohibited inside the temple premises. We were asked to deposit all our valuables in a counter. We were initially hesitant but had no other go. The security personnel deprived us of some high quality architectural shots on the cam. The temple was huge and had amazing lawns surrounding it. On the whole, I was highly impressed with the temple architecture and maintenance. No wonder this marvelous piece must be protected from the eyes of evil terrorists.

After that we returned back to Ahmedabad in a jeep which reminded me of Rajasthan where more than 20 people are packed into a single jeep! Due to economic considerations we had to settle in for such a journey. We then got down at a place in central Ahmedabad. Suddenly we decided to visit the Indian Institute of Management (IIM A) campus, but we weren’t aware of the place where it was located. The auto rickshaw walas gave us a huge surprise. They asked IIM? Kya hai woh!!! My friend replied “puri duniya jaanthi hai uske bare mein.. aur amdavad mein rehkar “kya hai woh” bol raha hai !! Luckily after a brief wait at the auto stand we got one to reach IIM A. We sneaked into the campus without any formal security interrogation. As we entered , a feeling went through my mind..”One day I must be a proud alumnus of this institute “ .. wish my WISH comes out true !

We took as many snaps as possible because we knew getting back to this place would be extremely difficult literally! Then we had a quick snack at the Canteen. The food was nice and we later moved to the Vikram Sarabhai Library. Since we didn’t have official permission,we couldn’t enter the library. We roamed through the campus and enjoyed the nice evening walk. There was an underpass to the new campus which looked stunning. All the rooms were air-conditioned and the buildings stood amidst lush green lawns.

We took snaps alongside the name board of IIM at the main gate.It was around 1715 and there was a train at 1800hrs back to Surat , but I wanted to watch Dasavatharam very badly. Hence I decided to go to Adlabs, Himalaya Mall (located jus 2kms from IIM campus). My friends who were CHOMS( northis..acronym for Chapathi Oriented Monkeys) decided to catch the 1800hrs train. So I went to the mall alone. I was lucky to get a ticket for the 1945 show. Just imagine watching a new Tamil Movie in Gujarat!! truly amazing experience. Since I had more than 2hrs for the movie to begin, I dropped into a net café to access orkut and gtalk. I spent 1 hour in the café and moved back to the mall. The mall was very big -atleast 3 times that of City Center, Chennai. Adlabs was very well maintained and had a great ambience. The movie was entertaining with Kamal Haasan proving yet again how good an actor he is. I personally liked Christian Fletcher character. The movie lacked some solid story but was fine overall. It was 2300hrs when I came out of the theatre. I had to rush back to the station to catch the 2355hrs train back to Surat. I got some biscuits and water and boarded the train and happily went back to Surat. By the time I reached the hostel it was 0430 !! and I had to get up at 0630 to get back to Essar and one full week of burden was to follow!!