A few potholes …so what

…I had given up trying to read and my attention was trying to focus upon the rebounding horizon when suddenly I was driving Daisy (my car) with Julie ably following in Valerie the Volvo, Daisy is built for bumps, Valerie is not.  It was with this brief memory of navigating one of the UK’s worst public roads in search of a country inn, that I was transported to Lincolnshire and, hey presto, I had my metaphor for the landscape of Western Gujarat!

The patchwork of small manually-tended fields had given way to a level 360 of fen-like monocultures.  Either side of my dead-straight farm track (and its two-way cargo of trucks, camel carts, and mad-max bikes) blankets of corn and pinstriped vegetables faded into the distant haze dissected by orderly irrigation channels.  On crossing the Porbandar/Jamnagar district border, the horizon (which for tens of miles had been gyrating like a triple-bar-olympian) rocked itself into balanced poise and with that came peace and predominantly forward motion.  Loose windows settled into their tracks, squeaking only as they were pushed open to let the hot, dust-free wind circle our sweat soaked bodies.  The chassis silently licked its wounds and our knuckles returned from white to flesh.  We were on tarmac, tarmac so smooth that I remembered with disproportionate joy, Daisy and I heading for Lincolnshire along the M6 toll.  I made a note to thank God for the UK’s glorious roads.

Where Ghandi and Granny were born

Ghandi's Exact Birthplace

My lovely friend Sangeeta has never been to India and so, ever up for a project, I promised to snap some photos of her Granny’s village for her.  That is how I wound up with my head tipped back, in the pitch black, pondering space and time as part of a circle of women within a circle of men.

Navigating Marriage

Porbandar is ordinary, but what it lacks in beauty, it makes up for with gusto. Loud men with big grins sell fruit to busy ladies in bright bandhani¹ on the corners of streets with thick banks of parked bikes through which an auto river flows. Their incessant beeps perforate the dusty, dried fish mist which settles in the side streets casting a sepia tinge over its suitably antiquated scenes. On the border of town, thick mangroves and dessert meet by the river and just like in between the beach and the maidan², the poor live in temporary tents.

As I have now come to expect from Gujarat, the people of Porbandar excelled themselves.  My hotel was brightly staffed, my auto driver didn’t over-charge and on seeing my disappointment that the internet café was closed until 5pm, Jay from Jalaram Tours kindly invited me to use his wifi and even sent one of his staff to arrange my mobile top-up! (thanks again!).

The Lonely Planet may have dropped their coverage of Porbandar after edition 13 but it’s firmly on my map …particularly as the place whose sightseeing tour included twenty minutes in a segregated planetarium with Gujarati discourse!!

¹Intricate tye dye fabrics made with numerous tiny knots in fabulous patterns

²large outdoor area for public gatherings