Travelling Around Britain and the World

Tuesday, 12 March 2019

Going to School and Other Entertainments in the Great Rann of Kutch: Gujarat Part 14

Gujarat: The What, Where, When and Who


India
Gujarat
This post covers final full day of a 14-day journey around Gujarat, following our circuit of Rajasthan last year. Smaller than

5,000 years ago, Gujarat was a centre of the Indus Valley civilization and subsequently played its part in most of the major north Indian empires. When Islamic invaders reached northern India in the 9th century Gujarat held out until 1300 when it became part of the Delhi Sultanate.

We sent the nights of the 11th and 12th of March in Hodka in the Kutch district.

An independent Muslim sultan seized power in 1391 and Gujarat maintained its independence until becoming part of the Mughal Empire in the 16th century and later the British Empire, though local rulers of a patchwork of Princely States retained considerable autonomy. At independence in 1947 Gujarat was part of the State of Bombay, becoming a state in its own right in 1960.

With a long coast line facing the Arabian sea, Gujaratis have been seafarers and international traders for millennia.

Gujarat is the home state of both Mahatma Gandhi and the current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

-o0o0o-

Life in a Bhiradiyara and a Visit to Kala Dunga

Bhirandiyara

After a leisurely start L drove us 10km west to the village of Bhirandiyara which straddles the main road north.

The huts at our resort were for tourists, I was surprised to find the village dwellings were, from outside at least, very similar, both individually…

Decorated house, Bhirandiyara

…and as an ensemble. Each was built on a concrete plinth, keeping it above the sandy surroundings - or muddy (or even flooded) surroundings in the brief rainy season (July and August).

Dwellings, Bhirandiyara

Several houses were selling handicrafts and we were toured round them and made a few purchases.

Bharandiraya Crafts

We bought a small decorated camel from a man who proudly showed us a picture of himself as part of a band of traditional musicians. He told us they had travelled to play at festivals, including one in Brazil.

Camel from Bhirandiyara

At another house we bought a cushion cover and were taken inside to be shown the local technique for sowing tiny mirrors into fabric to give sparkly effects.

To the European eye Bhirandiyara is a strange place. It is a large village (pop 3,500 according to the 2011 census) but has no streets, no obvious centre, no real clustering of dwellings and sprawls over the area of a medium sized town.

Bhirandiyara

Going to School in Bhirandiyara

Although after 10.30, we encountered a stream of children going to school. ‘Let’s follow them,’ said Vijay. Now, where I come from you that would get you arrested.

Going to school, Bhirandiyara

We followed them through the village, over a field, through a broken-down fence – perhaps not the official route but everyone used it – to the school, a collection of tatty single-storey buildings surrounding a dusty playground. Reporting to the nearest classroom we found the teacher happy to break off her preparations for the day and talk to us.

Classroom, Bhirandiyara School

We soon found ourselves sitting before a school assembly. A group of girls in front of us led some prayers, the ‘eyes closed, hands together’ technique working as well with Hindu prayers as it did with the Christian prayers of my childhood – and of course a couple of boys were looking round for an opportunity for mischief.

Hands together, eyes closed, Bhirandiyara school

The assembly grew as more children arrived, organising itself from regular practice and light touch supervision with the little ones at the front and the older children at the back. After the prayers there were some readings and singing.

We were introduced, and three children were invited to the front to lead the others in chanting the alphabet, the days of week and months of the year in English. A question and answer session followed mainly of the ‘what do you think of…’ variety, so we said appropriate nice things. One girl told us the name of her village was Bhirandiyara and wanted to know the name of ours.

After a brief photo call, the children went to class and we went to talk to the head. He told us of his attempts to widen the children’s horizons beyond their isolated village; we saw photographs of school trips into the wider world of Kutch, and he showed us teaching material about the even wider world beyond – teaching material we had just become part of.

Bhirandiayar School

But would a couple of retired Indian teachers turning up out of the blue have received the same welcome? Could we still be trading on ‘white privilege’ after 70+ years of Indian independence? I will decline to answer, but as a former teacher I do know that if two such exotic specimens had wandered into my school it would have been a dereliction of my duty not to turn it into a teaching opportunity, and that was what had just happened. But here we also encountered one of the conundrums of tourism. What we did was fine because it was just us, if every European staying at Hodka’s ‘resort hotels’ came to assume it was their right to stroll into school unannounced, the head would soon repair the broken fence we came through.

The ‘Mava of Most Famous Bhirandiyara’

We returned to the main road opposite the ‘Bhirandiyara Mava Center’. ‘Have you tried mava?’ Vijay asked. We hadn’t, so we did. Mava (or mawa or khoya) is available across the sub-continent, but the locals think theirs is particularly fine. The sign offers ‘The Pure sweet & Normal Milk Mava of Most Famous Bhirandiyara’ (sic) – so this is as good as it gets.

The Bhirandiyara Mava Center

Beyond saying it was made from milk, Vijay was not totally clear what mava was. A little googling has since produced two basic recipes, one taking 40 minutes, the other less than four. In the quick version dried milk is mixed with double cream and then microwaved, in the traditional version milk is brought to the boil, then simmered very gently with constant stirring and after 40 minutes what is left may look like yoghurt but it is actually mava. A litre of milk produces one cup of mava. I hope ours was produced the second way – the sign suggests it. It is very pleasant and surprisingly sweet, though not apparently sweetened, but I am not convinced it would be worth 40 minutes stirring if I had to do it myself.

Lynne eating Mava, Bhirandiyara

Bhirandiyara – South End

There is another wing of Bhirandiyara, south of the Mava centre and the side road from Hodka. At the north end the huts are painted and there is an intention to sell handicrafts to tourists even if there are, as yet, no tourists (except us!), the south was more normal rural India. But it is not entirely normal, this is not good land and wringing a living from it is not easy.

No chance of crops, precious little grazing, Bhirandiyara famland

We walked through several small farms. Each had a few cows, most looking healthy enough. These are docile beasts though, not for the first time Lynne managed to entice one to lunge at her; how she does that is a mystery. The cow backed down when confronted, as they always do.

Cattle, Bhirandiyara

A red-wattled lapwing (vanellus indicus) stalked about among the cattle. They are common across northern India and spend much of their time on the ground, making them easy to photograph.

Red wattled lapwing, Bhirandiyara

Our stroll took us past the village shop. The shopkeeper’s daughter (I think) detached herself from the gang of children playing outside, demanded I take her picture, and then resolutely refused to smile. Perhaps she should have been at school.

Unsmiling shopkeeper's daughter, Bhirandiyara

Somehow, we had spent all morning in the village and it was time to find our way back to the car. I had lost my bearings in all our wandering, but fortunately Vijay managed to retrace our steps (well he is a guide!) and L drove us back to Hodka for lunch.

Kala Dungar

In the afternoon, when the heat had abated a little, we set out for Kala Dungar (lit: Black Hill), the highest point in Kutch. Back at Bhirandiyara, L turned north up the main highway through a flat, uninhabited wasteland, the soil arid and salty.

A flat, uninhabited wasteland - north of Birandiyara

After 20km we reached the village of Khavda on the south west corner of Paccham Island. If the July and August rains are plentiful, the land we had just crossed becomes submerged, and so does the salt desert we visited yesterday. Together they form a huge lake and then the rough circle of higher ground known as Paccham Island lives up to its name.

The eastern half of the ‘island’ is hardly above sea level, but a little north of Kavda we turned west onto a minor road into the hillier western side. The land rises gently at first and although it is hardly lush, it looks slightly less inhospitable.

Paccham Island

15 minutes later we passed a strange sign. This is not iron ore country, so there can be no localised magnetic field, and the earth’s magnetic field is everywhere, so why tell me about it here? A 90 second YouTube video of two cars rolling backwards uphill filmed on this stretch of road explains all. The sign and maybe the commentary – it is in Gujarati but I understood the words ‘magnetic field’ if nothing else - attribute the effect to a magnetic field. It is, though an impressive if not a particularly rare optical illusion. A full explanation is available on Wikipedia here.

'Magnetic Hill', Kala Dungar

A little further on, after passing the most palatial of pigeon residences….

Palatial pigeon residence, Kala Dungar

…L parked the car and we walked up to Sunset Point, the top of Kala Dungar, from where there is the most fabulous panoramic view of…well, nothing really.

On Sunset Point, Kala Dungar

From the highest point in Kutch, 458m above sea level and much the same height above the Great Rann, it is difficult to pick out where the salt stops and the sky begins. To our west was Rann of Kutch Lake, it looks big on the map, and it is in the wet season, but in March it is largely a salt pan – I stared at it hard, but had no idea if there was any water there or not.

Beyond the hill there is salt and sky, definitely, and water maybe - but which is which?

To the north, less than 30km away was the Pakistan border. I had rather forgotten the outburst of tit for tat raids that had happened a couple of weeks ago, but the Indian Army hadn’t. An electronic box of tricks sat by the shelter scanning the horizon (it could see it, even if I could not). It relayed its information to a couple of squaddies sitting in a hut with earphones and a screen. Their young officer came over to talk to us. I thought he would instruct us not to take photographs, but all he did was ask us, very politely, not to touch it. We complied.

Sunset Point, Kala Dungar. I am in the shade, the electronic wizardry is just ouside, in front of me and to the left

Back at Hodka, we enjoyed another good dinner, but after two lunches and two dinners we were begining to realise their repertoire was not extensive – no matter, this was our final meal here. Dinner over, there was little to do but retire to our hut, read a book, and sip a nightcap of Chennai-distilled Old Monk rum, bought with our tourists' liquor licence in this otherwise dry state.

13-March-2019

We were up at four to leave at five. The bathroom was a separate building joined to the hut by a short, high-walled but unroofed corridor. When I say ‘short’ I mean one, maybe two paces, just long enough to discover it was raining. Big drops were falling lazily, splashing down like overweight, disorganised drizzle.

By the time we departed the rain had stopped and left no sign of ever having happened. L drove us back to Bhuj and dropped us at the airport for our flight to Mumbai. We said our goodbyes and he and Vijay set off for Ahmedabad by road.

And so ended our Gujarat sojourn.

-o0o00o-

Our thanks to L, a man of few words and none of them in English, but he drove safely, was always in the right place at the right time and had an impressive knowledge of the highways and byways of Gujarat.

Thanks also to Pioneer Travel of Kochi who made all the ground arrangements.

Biggest thanks to Vijay, a very special guide: it is not on every trip that we visit the houses of poor farmers, interview the head of a secondary school, became an ‘assembly’ in a junior school and have tea with royalty.

We flew to Mumbai with Jet Airways. With 124 aircraft serving 37 domestic and 20 international destinations they were a substantial company. On the 19th of April 2019 they went out of business. Still, we were long gone by then, unlike the Monarch airlines debacle in 2017.

The two final posts in this thread will be from Mumbai.

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Location: Rann of Kutch, Gujarat

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