crazy hot day in Gandhinagar

What a crazy day! So I decided I should go to Gandhinagar today to meet Kaushik, the planner Shwaran introduced me to. I must say I’m a bit proud of myself – Mom used to get impressed when I went places by myself in St. Louis – well today I took the bus to Gandhinagar by myself. And I must say that even in the US taking a bus in daunting to figure out which one goes where you want to go, but when everything is not in your language, and not even in Hindi, but Gujarati! But really all I did was go to the bus stop and ask some women if they were going to Gandhinagar and got on the same bus. Then when I got there, I also had no clue where I was!

I thought finding my way around Gandhinagar would be a lot easier because it is laid out on a grid. The E/W streets are numbered and the N/S streets are letters of the Hindi alphabet. Each square of the grid formed by the streets is called a sector, and each sector is numbered. So unlike in Ahmedabad where addresses are referenced to a neighborhood, perhaps a street, but usually to a landmark, in Gandhinagar they are referenced by their sector number. Even with this easy system I had a difficult time getting the auto drivers to understand where I wanted to go. So eventually I got to the commercial sector and walked around the shops. There are so many open spaces with gardens in Gandhinagar! But so many have fences around them. I found a restaurant, Sanjan, and had Gujarati thali for lunch which was nice. I am becoming fond of the Gujarati thali…and it’s sweetness.

So then I tried walking to the Sachivala where Kaushik works – the sector with the government administration buildings and such. Gandhinagar is a bizarre experience – the sectors are enormous for a city with such a small population; it’s so not dense at all! So I was walking along the road, the length of this enormous sector, and it is soooo hot. I mean really bad. There’s this big landscape buffer with trees to my left which is so not typically Indian, and this big median with a nice garden to the right- again so not typical. And there’s almost no one walking around at all – the most atypical for India! So I’m feeling really, really conspicuous at this point. So several random people on bikes stop and ask me where I’m from and what I’m doing. One guy rides ahead, but later he’s on the other side of the street, trying to offer me some water. People here are really friendly though; they’re just curious really and don’t seem to mean any harm. That’s why it’s nice living in areas that are not touristy. People rarely seem to try to take advantage of you; they’re usually just curious.

So Kaushik’s email said he worked in the Civil Supply building, sector 10 – one of the admin. Sectors. I asked someone and they said to go into the capitol complex with the Sachivala, so I have to go through the gates and show my ID and get a note allowing me in. They said the building I wanted was block 14, so I wander around looking for it and discover it’s on the complete opposite side, and this block is enormous. I get to building 14, and Kaushik says he’s looking for me. I get to his floor and ask for him, and this man doesn’t know who he is, so I call him and they talk. So it seems this isn’t the right building, and Kaushik’s building is not so close. This man is a government official so he has his driver take me to the building, only this building is still not right. More wandering around, Kaushik calls…general confusion, but finally I find him. Poor guy, I feel so bad that he’s been standing outside waiting for me, and it’s soooo hot. I feel soo stupid, too! The whole day wandering around..

He takes me to GNA, and the person he wants me to speak with is not there, so I speak to another planning woman instead, but she doesn’t seem to speak English so well. I just wanted to leave at this point I was getting so frustrated. She just kept saying they planned it this way because the government said too. Luckily after that he took me to his planning office and had me speak with a CEPT urban design grad who spoke English very well and who understood better what I was interested in. On one level it was great, on the other, I wonder are schools here just teaching western concepts?

Anyway then we went to GUDA – gandhinagar urban development association. They are planning the new development, really the sprawl of the city toward Ahmedabad, so this is interesting. The city is already not dense and now it’s planning the sprawl..They are basically taking land from farmers and redrawing property lines to make parcels more uniform and then selling it for commercial development. All the land inside Gandhinagar city is owned by the government, so they have strictly controlled development. It’s quite interesting actually, the whole situation. Ok, so again feeling stupid, when I leave I can’t even find my way out of the building’s complex, so one of the engineers I met there is driving by and takes me to the bus station.

Ok so the bus station, again I have no clue where these buses are going because it’s all in Gujarati. And sometimes buses just roll by, so at one point guys were getting on by pulling themselves up through the windows!! So I find another girl in a group who looks like she would speak English well, and so she says to just follow them. Well even they don’t know which bus to take, but finally after awhile we find the right one.

So I take the bus to Income Tax cross road or something or other, and I decide to poke around in the shops. There’s really nice government emporium with lovely paintings – a few of traditionally dressed Rajasthani women I would have loved to buy, only they were enormous..but so great…maybe I could ship them home. So I end up buying some more dress material for a salwar kameez – a nice silk one in purple with beautiful embroidery. So I splurged on this one – but my other ones were so cheap – only Rs. 250, this one was Rs. 1350. So still for a whole outfit a little over $30. But it’s so great here, I can have a whole outfit tailored for less than $10. In the US because I wear bigger sizes, there isn’t so much choice for me, so here I can have it tailored to fit, and I’ve decided I’m going to have a nice time with shopping for once!

So I take an autorickshaw home and decide I’ll try to learn the names of the crossroads, so I’ll know the city better. So I start asking the driver in Hindi the names of the crossroads, so he’s telling me all of them. Sometimes he points out the landmark, like a store, to ask for and the road name. It’s really interesting actually. I want to do a project on wayfinding here and perhaps interview auto drivers. We were driving and I was trying to take pictures as we drove, and the driver noticed and slowed down on the side so I could take them, so usually the drivers here are really nice.

So I get home and Arpita has been out in the heat all day too, so we go to Café Coffee Day down the street for some cold drinks. A busy day, right?? It was crazy! But I feel like I learned a lot!

Funny side note – I was showing my roommies pics from the US and she was like, wow where are all the people??? And where is all the dust! It’s so clean…so yes, two differences in the places…