“We have landed at the Ahmedabad International Airport. The temperature outside is 44 degrees centigrade…”

My eyebrows remain shot up as the pilot completes his monologue. I walk out of the aircraft as the stewardess flashes her smile asking me to enjoy my stay.
“In this heat?” I ask crudely. She continues to smile. May be the job protocol doesn’t let her to be rude with grumpy customers. I step down on ground zero. The temperature must have shot up another two degrees.
“Three years” I sigh to myself…

Three months have passed since that hot afternoon.
Did I have to mention hot? May be I should, because I was told that the season was monsoon. Monsoon, in my books is dark grey clouds and steady drizzles.
There were drizzles, but of sweat. If you ever wanted to know the exact location of your sweat pores, come to Ahmedabad.
And when nature did follow its unwritten rules of the monsoon season, it pours. I wonder if I preferred the sun.
The showers pound the city for probably an hour or two but the souvenirs – Waterlogged roads, cancellation of trains and flights, power cuts, etc remain for a good amount of time. Bless the people who cribbed that it doesn’t rain in this city.

Coming into a city which has a notorious track record of terror related activities and an uncomfortable tension in the air, Ahmedabad was never on my holiday destination list. But as destiny would have it, academics pulled me to this city. Not for a breezy stay but for a good three years. Rather, if I had to exaggerate – three back to back torturous summers.

Moving out of Bangalore after staying there for eighteen years was no walk in the park for me. But I did realize the faster I considered Ahmedabad home, the easier it would be for me to digest. Ahmedabad is no Paris. It’s definitely not a city you can fall in love with first up. Searing temperatures, chaotic traffic, cattle hogging the highways and the latest addition to the Pandora box – insecurity. Certainly not the recipe for a dream city.

The reality – Ahmedabad is a dream city. It takes time for one to fall in love with the city, but once you do, there is no second love. Ask any Amdavadi and he’d rate Ahmedabad higher than any other Indian metro. I definitely would.
Ahmedabad is warm. But the people here are warmer. I’d be disgusted when I’d hear foreign delegates term Indians as warm people. My flat theory was we Indians are money minded. Sweet words and an everlasting toothy smile is an involuntary reaction to a heavy pocket. Ninety days in Ahmedabad, I’d sheepishly take back my words of wisdom.

A Complete stranger stopping his two wheeler on a hot afternoon, emptying his water bottle to quench someone else’s thirst seems like a scene from the sets of Ramayana. But something similar happened in my case. Not in Ayodhya, but in Ahmedabad. This is not glamorizing the whole sect just because of one helping person, there are many such instances that occur on a daily basis. Honesty and overt affection of the people doesn’t cease to baffle me.
The bonds of humanity still do exist in this mechanical world and Ahmedabad is a proof of that.

The spirit that lingers about in the air is serene. Textbooks may define it as insecure which is so not true.
There might be a small section which tries to break this Amdavadi spirit. They have been successful to some extent considering the visible dents but the spirit, to me, has stayed upbeat all throughout.
The city might be still come under the bracket of developing as far as materialistic infrastructure is concerned but when it comes down to the basic relationship of humanity, Ahmedabad rules the rues.

Ahmedabad may not be the hip and happening city. Where sleep is synonymous to night to most locals and the (official) ban on alcohol, the city might be termed as a damp squib by an outsider. But the city by itself has the capacity to intoxicate you within its captivity and can keep you on a high all day amidst its rich and enchanting historical and cultural artifacts.

Fall in love with the city and the city would love you more. Make the city unsafe and the city does become unsafe. That’s the spine of Ahmedabad. It may have its own drawbacks like every other city but it shines bright on the map with its flair for rapid development and stagnant bonds of unseen humanity.

I’m back in Ahmedabad after a short holiday.
The pilot hums his monologue – “We have landed at the Ahmedabad International Airport. The temperature outside is 31 degrees centigrade…”

“That’s it?” I smile and walk past the ever smiling stewardess.


- Rahul Mansur