Gujarat

Anand

Anand is known across India as the milk capital of the country, and that reputation comes down to one organisation. In 1946 the dairy farmers of the Kaira district were being squeezed by middlemen who set the price and took most of the margin, so under Tribhuvandas Patel they set up their own co-operative and cut the middlemen out entirely. That co-operative became Amul, a name taken from the Sanskrit word amulya, meaning priceless.

What made it work at scale was Verghese Kurien, an engineer who arrived in Anand almost by accident on a government posting and ended up staying for the rest of his career. Under him the co-operative worked out how to make milk powder from buffalo milk, which nobody had done commercially before, and the Anand model of farmer owned co-operatives was copied across the country through a programme called Operation Flood. Over about three decades it turned India from a country short of milk into the largest producer in the world, and the whole thing is usually called the White Revolution.

Because of all that, Anand ended up with institutions built around rural business, including the Institute of Rural Management Anand, which opened in 1979. Just outside the town is Vallabh Vidyanagar, an entire township built from scratch after independence purely to educate students from the surrounding villages.

Balasinor

Balasinor was a princely state before independence, ruled by the Babi dynasty, a family of Afghan origin who came into the region during the decline of Mughal authority in Gujarat and held the state from the middle of the eighteenth century. The state acceded to India in 1948, and the family still lives in the town.

The other thing Balasinor is known for is a lot older. At Raiyoli, just outside the town, is one of the largest dinosaur nesting sites found anywhere in the world, with thousands of fossilised eggs lying in the ground. A species was identified from the bones found in the area and named Rajasaurus narmadensis, meaning the princely lizard of the Narmada. There is now a fossil park and museum built around the site, and the family of the last Nawab have been closely involved in promoting and protecting it.

The Nawab's hunting palace

The hunting mansion belonging to the current Nawab of Balasinor and Junagadh is a bright yellow building set behind a garden, and it has been converted into a hotel so people can stay in it. Back when shooting parties were part of the life of a princely state this is where they were based. Like a lot of these properties it had no obvious purpose once the princely states were dissolved, and rather than let it fall apart the family opened it up.

Going through it does not feel like a museum visit. The rooms still have the family's things in them, there are hunting photographs and portraits on the walls, and the furniture is what was actually used rather than what was chosen to look period correct. Someone from the family shows you around and tells you the history as family history instead of as a script.

The thing I did not expect was inside. There is a taxidermy cheetah in one of the rooms, shot by the king generations ago, and you can still see the gunshot wound on it. Cheetahs have been extinct in India since the middle of last century, so standing in front of one that was hunted here is a strange and slightly uncomfortable thing. We were not allowed to take photographs inside, so that one is only in my memory.

The temples

One of my photos is of a temple on the edge of a lake, and I did not include it because it is famous. I included it because it is not. It is an ordinary temple that happens to sit on the water, and the carving on the arches and the marble balustrade looking out over the lake are as good as anything you would pay to get into somewhere else.

That is the point about Gujarat that is hard to explain until you are there. Almost any temple you walk past has architecture like this, and the setting around it is usually part of the design rather than an accident. You stop treating them as attractions after a while because there are so many of them.

Cultural significance

Gujarat is probably best known for Navratri, a festival that runs for nine nights and is celebrated harder here than anywhere else in the country. People dance garba in large circles that keep going most of the night. In January the state also celebrates Uttarayan, when families spend the whole day on their roofs flying kites.

The food is mostly vegetarian and a Gujarati thali comes as a tray of small bowls, so you end up trying a bit of everything in one meal. The state has a long textile tradition too, including bandhani, which is a tie dye technique, and patola silk from Patan that can take months to weave.

My connection

This is my birthplace. Everywhere else on this trip I was a visitor working through a list of things to see, and here I was in the towns my family comes from, being taken around by people who have lived there their whole lives and who were far more interested in feeding me than in showing me monuments.

It is a strange feeling arriving somewhere you are from but do not really know. I left when I was three, so I have no memory of it that is properly mine. People point at a house or a street and tell you something happened there involving your family, and you are standing in front of it with no recollection at all, only the story you have just been told. It gives you a version of the place that is secondhand but somehow still yours.

The food alone is worth the trip. A thali arrives and keeps arriving, and saying no is treated as a suggestion rather than an answer. The pace is slower than anywhere else I went in India, and after Delhi and Rajasthan that was welcome.

What I would tell you before you go

If you can plan a trip around Navratri or Uttarayan then do it, because the whole state changes during both. Gujarat is a dry state so alcohol is not sold the way it is elsewhere in India. Eat a thali at least once and go hungry, since they keep refilling the bowls until you tell them to stop.

Photos

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