India Part I: Life in Ahmedabad

We’ve been looking forward to our India visit since we started our trip. We are staying for 5 weeks and seeing family, some of whom Asha is meeting for the first time! We flew into Ahmedabad, Nishant’s birthplace, and the largest city in the state of Gujarat, to the warm welcome of family who met us at the airport.

We spent the first few days getting oriented to Ahmedabad and seeing our family, some of whom were also visiting at the same time from the US, and those who live in the city.

We are staying with Nishant’s aunt and uncle and parents in their new condo who have all been so helpful and taking such good care of us! They toured us around the neighborhood and took us out to dinner at one of their favorite urban eateries where everyone chose their own food from a selection of different food stalls. The sizzling brownie was a big hit!

Uttarayan Kite Festival

We arrived in India just in time for Uttarayan – India’s annual kite flying festival. Flying kites during Uttarayan is one of Nishant’s favorite childhood memories with family in India. We went down to the riverfront to see the official kite festival venue and toured the exhibit about the history of kites in India and how they are made.

Flying kites during the festival is serious business and requires preparation! The night before the festival, our family got together at our aunt’s house to string about 50-60 kites. We learned how to measure the string and the wooden cross of the kite, and how to string the kite to best capture the wind and take flight. The string of the kite is coated with a mixture of paint, glue and small glass shards used to cut the strings of other people’s kites during friendly competition.

On festival day, we all met up our aunt’s house, donned sunglasses, and hats and went up the roof to begin flying our kites. The sky was filled with hundreds of kites going after each other. You could see the kites that had been cut in midair fall to the ground followed by a communal victorious “woohoo”! After a full afternoon of snacks and flying, Asha and her cousins upcycled the old the kite remnants into bows and arrows. The night ended with fireworks! Uttarayan was a great introduction into India and a wonderful time with family.

Wedding Season

We were fortunate to arrive in India during a popular wedding season and be invited to join family at different weddings. Attending weddings means shopping! India has the best shopping in the world. Every pattern, fabric, color, style of clothing you could ever dream of, and then some, is here in India. The tailoring possibilities are endless and can be somewhat overwhelming. Shopping in India is an unparalleled experience.

Shopkeepers and staff are the ultimate hosts. They invite you to sit down, have chai, and then bring outfit after outfit to present all the options to narrow down what you are looking for. The staff separate the outfits out into “yes”, and “no” piles and then it’s time try on the “yes” outfits. The “no” pile gets thrown back to a separate team of people that folds everything back up and reshelves it. The weddings were a great opportunity to spend time with family, meet new distant cousins and make friends.

Indian weddings are grandiose events with spectacularly transformed venues décor, attire, food, pageantry, and music. The colors are bright, festive, and family and friends socialize and celebrate the union of bride and groom and the joining of two families.

Kid time and activities

We really love Ahmedabad as a home base in India. It’s easy to navigate by car or rickshaw and there are so many kids activities. During our first few days in town our family took us to Science City, a center with multiple educational exhibits each with different themes.

We visited The Robotics Gallery where we were greeted by the center’s robotic ambassador and were served by robots at the snack bar! We participated in impressive interactive robotics demonstrations that showcased robot applications for health care and gaming.

We made our way over to the Aquatics Gallery, which is India’s largest public aquarium. We especially enjoyed the 360-degree full view tank right at the entrance where we felt like we were walking underwater!

We made our way over to the Aquatics Gallery, which is India’s largest public aquarium. We especially enjoyed the 360-degree full view tank right at the entrance where we felt like we were walking underwater!

We’ve learned through our travels that the more kid time we can get the better. And this was especially true in India where one of our goals was to cultivate relationships. We wanted to spend a good amount of time just hanging out and learning about our family’s daily lives in India. We spent lots of time with Asha’s cousins, reading, playing games, going to school functions, and running around their apartment building with their friends.

We also met up with a family friend and her daughter, who homeschools, so they were free during the day. The girls had a lot in common, and we were inspired by this very community-minded family and how they structure their day.

Artisans

One of our favorite parts of our trip was getting to know the organization, Craftroots, who mission is to train low income women in artisan crafts, health, education, personal finance and leadership. Established in 1995, the project is always evolving and now incorporates university students who help preserve and innovate Indian crafts, and is building a new residence for visiting artisans.

Craftroots now has multiple stores throughout Gujarat that sell their beautiful products. Our cousin who has worked with this project for years introduced us to the staff and Asha was invited to spend the day learning about the artwork there and helping design some pieces. This was a highlight! Aunty Seema who took Asha under her wing was incredibly generous and all the designer/artisans who shared their craft were so kind and patient.

Following the day at Craftroots, one of Asha’s aunts helped Asha choose some fabrics at a local cotton store and introduced us to her to her tailor. We visited the tailor who took out his ledger and took Asha’s measurements, jotted down a drawing based on Asha’s designs, and pinned a swatch of her fabric inside the page. He let us know he would have our garments completed in 2 months due to the backlog he had due to wedding season! The resulting garments are beautiful and fit perfectly! The tailoring is amazing – the fit is perfect and the finishings added an extra aesthetic. Asha had a great experience seeing the garment go from her design to the final look!

Community Service

Ahmedabad is the home of Gandhi's Ashram which is located on the Sabarmati River and we had been looking forward to seeing it since we landed in India. Gandhi lived here from 1917 through 1930 and the Ashram became the center for where he developed his idea satyagraha – “holding onto truth” which stresses the principles of truth, tolerance, non-violence and peaceful protests.

He also formed a school here that cultivated self-sufficiency through manual labor in agriculture and the spinning of cotton, “khadi”, to end dependence on foreign goods. The Ashram also was the starting point for the Dandi march in 1930, a 241 mile journey out to the town of Dandi, to produce salt from the sea in defiance of the British Salt Law. The Ashram became a center of Indian freedom struggle and is an absolute must- see while in Ahmedabad. You can feel the enormity of Mahatma Gandhi’s contribution to India and the world while strolling through the peaceful surroundings of the exhibit.

Gandhi’s philosophy of community service and self-sufficiency is show in action even today, at the Ashram. The grounds of the Ashram is home to an NGO called Manav Sadhna, “devotion to mankind”, which started in 1995 to pull children from the slums who were trash picking and provide them an alternative education and way to earn money for their families. Through their work the organization works to “foster transformational change in marginalized communities” by providing education for kids and women in the areas of health, hygiene, empowerment and livelihoods such as crafts, and senior care.

We met some of the Manav Sadhna kids at one of the day centers that offers free meals and educational activities, in Ramapir No Tekro, a neighborhood that is actively being demolished for housing development by the city. We were humbled to see these kids learning and playing amidst the demolished rubble. We helped serve lunch and then stuck around to play outside with the kids. We learned from the residents about the challenges of the project. While the goal of providing affordable and clean, safe housing is positive, the loss of community bonds and lack of community input into the new construction has been disappointing. We saw many residents demolish their own homes to save the bricks to make their new housing more affordable or to sell off as their old businesses had been demolished.

We are grateful to our uncle for introducing us to a project he’s been volunteering with, Blind People's Association in Ahmedabad. He toured us through the eye hospital, introduced to staff, and showed us the community where folks with visual impairment can come for care, learn life skills, develop work skills and live.

The Vision in the Dark Project is a part of this project that spreads over 2000 sq yards and is based on similar projects in Vienna and Amsterdam. This experience is 45 minutes and done in total darkness. Our guide walked us through several rooms, feeling our way around objects and furniture, listening for cues and sounds, and smells to orient us. The tour was in Gujrati and at one point, Asha and I were separated from Nishant, our local translator, so we really had to lean on our other senses to reach the end!

The FOOD!

While in Ahmedabad and around India, we were so lucky that family shared all of the great local restaurants in the city!

We sampled some amazing flavors!! One of our favorites was Hocco Kitchen where we had this unforgettable chana masala and giant puri! We still talk about it to this day as one of the favorite meals of the trip.

Speaking of giant food, we also had the most delicious dosas at Sankalp restaurant to celebrate our aunt and uncle’s wedding anniversary. There was plenty of it to share with family as we ordered the famous 8 ft. long dosa!

While it may sound crazy, one of our favorite places to eat while we were in India was McDonald’s! As vegetarians, we have not been to a McDonald’s in the US for at least 20 years. Asha has never been to one. In India, that all changed as the menu is loaded with flavorful vegetarian options! Our favorites were the McAloo Tikki burger (potato and peas), Dosa Masala burger, and McSpicy Paneer wrap (cheese). So good!