Gujarat

Hindol Sengupta has written two definitive books on the Indian luxury industry. His latest book The Liberals, on living through 20 years of Indian economic liberalisation, was described by economist Meghnad Desai as, “this is your life if only you knew how to articulate it”. He is the founding trustee at the Whypoll Trust, India’s only open government platform. He was voted by the global ideas platform IdeaMensch on its 2011 list of 33 Entrepreneurs Who Make The World A Better Place. He is writing a new book on enterprise and the citizen. For us, he takes a closer look at Gujarat.

Scent of a city

THE Man Wears old clothes. He wears them lovingly. When the lights come on in his old, old mansion, he stands, his silks glistening like memories, on the landing that divides the two floors and raises his left arm to the twinkling darkness. He is the king again for the night, and the shawl, one hundred years old, draped on his arm with the carelessness of those who depend on their antiques, sways solemnly contemplating the history of vanity.

Umang Hutheesing, whose forefathers built large swathes of Ahmedabad, introduced me to the city about six years ago through a party at his old haveli, more than 125-years-old, where the soirées are almost spelt out in costume dramas, with Umang playing himself in royal attire collected for decades.

These costumes are now shown—most recently at a show with Pierre Berge, the companion of the late Yves Saint Laurent—in Paris. I touched them and watched my fingers go up in flames.

There were former royals in that party, business folk, a socialite or two, patrons of the arts, and as the lights came on, we gathered along the terrace of the mansion that reeks of residual gossip to watch a classical dance performance by one of the most renowned groups of the city. The name and the style has faded from memory but what is alive is what is sometimes, wrongly in my opinion, called the essence of a city. A city does not have an essence as much as it has a scent, a perfume of pent up, collective paroxysms. For what is a city but woven desire?

There is a functional Ahmedabad and a frolicking Ahmedabad. A city of vibrant deal-making (last heard there were 12 ‘five-star’hotels coming up at a suburban patch) and a city of pseudonyms and surreptitiousness, like a giggle during garba season, the city of unspoken possibility.

I go to Ahmedabad because there is a Law College road there, full of crafts bazaars and great roadside shopping, but when you ask for direction, people pronounce it as ‘loeve’ college road. This is a city of sotto voce love.

On one of my visits, overwhelmed by the ennui of the breakfast table at the hotel, I went hunting for a Krishna eatery. And though too many things are called Krishna in this town, I found my place. The tables, white plastic, were being wiped right behind the man with the cadaverous face and his Alibaba-style oil cauldron. He was frying jalebis. To be eaten with fafda, dhokla and thepla and green chutney. With a bite of green chillies every now and again. The calorie count is distinctly un-Gandhian but since then I go to Ahmedabad to eat breakfast.

Then there was that time when I went to Ahmedabad rushing from Paris. In Paris, I had heard of Jean-Louis Dumas, the man who made Hermes, the very profitable seller of handmade women’s bags, the global curator of luxury that it is today and who spent many days every year in Ahmedabad.

If you want to understand the fabric of Ahmedabad, go to the Calico Museum. Five hundred years of textile history unwraps itself as if unravelled from the bodies of the temple dancers of yore. It’s the antithesis of the idea of big commerce that today’s Ahmedabad stands for. It is bespoke in a fleshy, muddy, wear and tear sort of way that only hands can convey.

In the night eat lavishly at House of MG, once the home of a big name philanthropist, now a boutique hotel and authentic Gujarati food establishment with unending courses and a brass jug and hot water to wash the fingers in the end.

I go to Ahmedabad for the ice-cream, nothing you have ever tasted anywhere in the world compares to the best home made ice-cream in Ahmedabad. But if you are still bored, try and befriend Umang.