Blog 015 - Breakfast at Ajay's

Day 28 – Sunday, March 30

Morning off to a good start. Stomach is behaving; no unwanted rush to the bathroom. Hopefully things are on a good track. Got up a little earlier than usual for a Sunday. Everyone is invited over to Ajay's house for a homemade Gujarati breakfast. (Ajay is our main middle man around Manav Sadhna. He knows everyone around town. He is a meeter and greeter with a big smile and he has contacts for everyone. Just don't take his nodding head to mean yes, even when you think it does; that only means not at the moment. And five minutes could mean twenty minutes, thirty minutes or even five minutes.) Me and Jose stop at the store to pick up mango juice and some bananas; hate to go empty handed and it's not like you can bring a bottle of wine. Everyone is there except for Mary who has been a bit ill the last few days. Another bright and sunny day. Ajay lives in a relatively nice home at the entrance to one of the slums across from the Tekro, actually not too far from the hotel that I stayed at here on my first night in Ahmedabad. Ajay's place has two nice courtyards. His mother and brother lives here. We sit in a sort of family room, cross-legged on mats on the floor as a feast of food is brought out before us. They were careful not to make it too spicy for us; it's very delicious and we all eat our full. We have a ginger spiced chai, which is now at the top of my list of best cups of chai I have had so far. We drink out of the standard little chai cups, but Ajay drinks his Indian style, out of a saucer. From what I can see, the reasoning for this is while it sits in a shallow yet wider dish, it allows for quicker cooling. The cup is narrower and deeper, making for a longer cool down time. Makes sense to me. We sit around and chat for a while; a ceiling fan circulates the warm air around. It's comforting; it would be easy to doze off for a little siesta after a filling meal. I could imagine a couple of hammocks here to make it perfect. Alas, all good things must come to an end. We start seeing who is doing what later this afternoon. Ajay and Becky inform us of a place called Sarkhej Roza near Makarba. They recommend to go around 4 because it will be hot there. Apparently it is a Muslim complex with a mosque and a burial ground, but more than that. So Jose and I will be heading out that way later this afternoon.

At 1, we are headed over to Becky's place for coffee, then we are meeting Ajay around 2 to go to the big Reliance store to do some shopping. Becky has a Canadian friend visiting her when we get there – I can't remember her name. She is working in Ahmedabad at the moment working with another NGO and her husband is in Bangalore with a paid job. For the next hour and a half we all just sit around drinking coffee and talking. Ajay calls a bit after 2 and we head out for our trip to Reliance, which is similar to a Costco or Sam's Club in the US.

 

 

Well, we were at Reliance longer than expected, so we postponed the trip to Sarkhey Roze; apparently it takes about an hour to get there, so we just add that to our list of places to visit later. So after Reliance, we head over to Becky's place. It's always good to go have coffee there. She lives in her own flat on the third floor with a balcony overlooking a street that is always busy with vendors and people. Today was no exception. After we talked a while about politics and a bunch of other things, I hear a procession outside, so I grab my camera and head to the balcony. I spent the next two hours or so sitting out there in the nice breeze shooting photos of all sorts of people, cows and dogs. Some see me and look up, others don't see me and I get a lot of candid photos. It starts to get dark and I get to experiment with different settings, which is good because I haven't had a really good chance to practice in the past. This is a great place to do that with the setting sunlight, the shadows, lots of movement and the constant shifting of people at my disposal. Before long it's around 8 and time to head back to our ground floor flat a few blocks away.

Time to call it a night, after sorting photos and trying to access sporadic wifi via Jose's Android phone. It's not consistent so I just try to get to the email and nothing important there. I have given up on uploading photos this way, just save it till I get to Manav Sadhna in the evenings.