A trip to Gujarat – Part I (An evening in Ahmedabad)

The land of Gandhi and Modi beckoned me in late January, for the wedding of my closest college friend Nik. I was looking forward to this trip, one because it had been over four years since we had met, and second coz I wanted to see a Gujarati family function up close and personal.

This post will be divided in three parts, the first part(this one) is about my first evening in Ahmedabad, the second part would be about the Nik’s wedding ceremonies and gandhidham & the third would be my learnings from a big Gujarati family that sticks together.

Parts I & II were written on my mobile phone on the spot, & I will reproduce them in verbatim. Part III is where I search inside my empty head 🙂

Here goes part I

25-Jan-08: As always, its the clean airport that strikes you when you land at Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport.The only problem was the heavy head I had after the flight. For some reason my ears didn’t pop that caused one hell of a headache. But the sight of good ‘ol sid outside the airport took the headache away. What followed was a traffic nightmare unlike any I’ve ever seen. Everyone was going everywhere, it was as if the road was ruled by dogs! An eternity of red lights later, we reached Sid’s apartment.

A bit of rest later, we drove off to dinner at Uncle Sam’s pizza. This joint was a favorite of the town, and I was curious to find out how a pizza joint could gain popularity in the land of khakras and dhoklas.

The main attraction at Uncle Sam’s was the eat-all-you-can buffet. This is the first pizza joint that I’ve seen running such a scheme in India, after watching such a scheme in pizza huts in the US. The idea was pretty much the same, a large variety of salads, soup, garlic breads & pizzas. The only difference here was that it was all vegetarian, another unique thing you’d notice when in Gujarat! The taste was pretty decent, and it wasn’t too pricey at all.

After loading myself to the hilt with pizza & saying good-byes to Sid, I boarded an air-conditioned bus for the second leg of my journey. This leg would take me to my destination, Gandhidham. Lets see how this 8 hour bus ride turns out to be.

To be continued in Part II