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Friday, January 16, 2015

Day 3, Ahmedabad II: A very busy evening filled with fun

Readers will recall that I had ended my previous entry on the promise of the expected arrival of my Ahmedabadi friend Dr. Paresh Shah to pick me up. Imagine my pleasant surprise when he arrived exactly at four p.m. in his Honda car! He informed me that he took out his car only on holidays like this one. This was not a City or an Accord or even a Jazz. It was a mid-sized car and it was great! He has a diesel version. He had made up his mind to take me on a tour around Ahmedabad, and so, off we went. We visited several sectors of the new as well as the old city - going to the Siddi mosque, Ashram Road, Navrangpura, Kalupur, Delhi Darwaza, Teen Darwaza, etc before we finally reached his in-laws' house located inside a row-house complex. He took me straight up to the terrace of the 2-storey bungalow. Here, nearly 12-15 adults were all enjoying themselves with kites and "manja". These were all relatives of either Dr. Paresh or his wife, who turned out to be an affable person with a beaming smile and a welcoming presence. I was introduced to his daughter as well as to his 2 sisters-in-law, his brother-in-law, his other relations and so on. Everyone was busy, and I spent the next few hours watching them fly kites, or the Chinese balloons ("tukkals" in Gujarati street-side language) - the latter lit by wax tablets under them, and flying of their own accord once their insides were full of hot air, and eventually, also flying my own kite and my own tukkal. 

By half-past-seven, Dr. Paresh and I descended to the living room on the ground floor, and then we waited while one of the hosts went to fetch a parcel of bhaji pav. When he returned, we went into the house from the outside verandah where we had sat for the previous half an hour, and then partook of the nice dinner of home-made undhiyu,bhaji and butter pav bhaji, with accompaniments of jalebi and soft drinks. At half past eight, he got up and beckoned me to follow him to his car. Once we had reached there, we travelled back to Laljis hotel where I retired for the night.

I have taken several pictures of the intense fun I had, and will post them soon into the blog entries. Busy with exam studies, as you know. 

Today, I spent my morning either studying or laxing around. Only two days away, my exam seems to have taken over a new purpose in my mind. It is no longer about being ready to be grilled over the coals on my clinical knowledge. I am more scared about whether I will ever be able to finish my studies ...

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