Best of Gujarat

Barely glimpsed by many travellers scuttling between the state of Mumbai (Bombay) and Rajasthan, Gujarat is an easy side-step off the well-beaten tourist trail. Here, its capital, Ahmedabad, retains some charm amid its chaos. Ahmedabad, also called Amdavad, Ahmadabad or Ahemdavad is Gujarat’s major city and a startling metropolis with a long history, many remarkable buildings, and a fascinating maze of an old quarter, excellent museums, fine restaurants and fabulous night markets.

You need a little stamina to get to know the city better, as it’s quite spread out and moving around can be a bit of a task. The old city lies on the east side of the Sabarmati River and used to be surrounded by a 10km-long wall, of which little now remains except 15 formidable gates standing as the forsaken islands amid swirling, cacophonous commotion of the city. The new city on the west side of the river, nearly all built in the last 50 years, has wider streets, several major universities, and many middle-class neighbourhoods.

Around Ahmedabad, Bhavnagar is an excited, sprawling industrial centre with a colourful old core that makes a base for journeys to nearby Shatrunjaya and Blackbuck National Park. Visitors make it a point to be amidst the beauty of the nature of the National Park. As you venture through the world made by the man, embrace the change of the quietness of the deep. Sasan Gir. As the woods of the Gir will disguise you, eventually the subtle faces of this deep will be unveiled.

Spend some majestic time with the majesty in Gir, whose history has a strong and long connection to the antiquity. Be in the dwelling of the Gir lions, once which stretched west, across Asia, as far as Greece. These were the lions that Anthropolis and Deniel faced, the lions of ancient Greece and Bible. These were the same lions that the Romans set up on the Christians in the coliseum. Grab your chance to visit the very last of this ancient race, still living in Gir.

However, Diu is different. This tiny island linked by a bridge to Gujarat’s southern coast is infused with Portuguese history; its major architectural landmarks include three churches and a seafront fort; the streets of the main town are remarkably clean and quiet once you get off the tourist-packed waterfront strip. With Daman, it is still governed from Delhi as part of the Union Territory of Daman & Diu and is not part of Gujarat. The northern side of the island of Diu, facing Gujarat, is tidal marsh and salt pans, while the southern coast alternates between limestone cliffs, rocky coves and sandy beaches.

Somnath’s famous, phoenix-like temple will stand gazing at you in neat gardens above the beach, 6km southeast of Veraval. The sea below gives it a wistful charm of the endless time. Somnath celebrates Kartik Purnima, marking Shiva’s killing of the demon Tripurasura, with a large colourful fair, a spectacle worth witnessing. Legend had it that the moon God Somraja first erected Somnath, a temple made of gold. This was rebuilt by Ravana in silver, by Krishna Vasideva in wood, and by Bhimdev in stone; all bedecking the Phallic Stone, the heart of the temple, one of the 12 most sacred Shiva shrines, known as jyotirlinga.

Witness the self-illuminating temple in the coastal serenity that even prompted the most unwelcoming visit of the infamous looter Mahmud of Ghazni from Afghanistan. Gazni was baffled with the wealth of the temple, which also included 300 musicians, 500 dancing girls and even 300 barbers. It took two days to take the temple town, where 70,000 Hindu defenders were slaughtered. So began a pattern of Muslim destruction and Hindu rebuilding that continued for centuries. The temple was again razed in 1297, 1394 and finally in 1706 by Aurangzeb, the notorious Mughal ruler. After that, the temple wasn’t rebuilt until 1950.

Dwarka literally feels like the end of the earth. Enter the city of the God, a remote pilgrimage spot at the extreme western tip of the Kathiawar peninsula. This is one of the four most holy Hindu sites in India, where Krishna Vasudeva built his capital after leaving Mathura. The lord here blesses his devotees with wide, benevolent eyes, gazing for time immemorial, from his seat, 60 miles away from his submerged kingdom of 32,000 years old, which is twice the size of Manhattan.

Before you conclude your visit to Gujarat, come back to the civilization from the from beyond the realm of spirituality. Experience the time travel of the classic civilization in the old city of Rajkot, east of the newer centre, still has plenty of character, with narrow streets, markets, and farmers still selling ghee on street corners. Rajkot was founded in 1612 by Jadeja Rajputs and had been the headquarters of the Western India States Agency, Britain’s administrative centre for some 400 princely states in Saurashtra, Kachchh and northern Gujarat, in the colonial era.