In 2017 the 600-year-old Historic City of Ahmedabad was declared by UNESCO to be India’s first World Heritage City. So this year I returned to my hometown to find out why.

The river Sabarmati runs through the modern metropolis of Ahmedabad and it was on the eastern bank of the river that Ahmed Shah laid the foundation stone for the new capital of his Sultanate in 1411. It is this historic walled city or Old Ahmedabad and specifically the fusion of multicultural influences – Islamic, Hindu and Jain – characterising its architecture which has been deemed worthy of the World Heritage designation. When I was growing up I never really ventured into the Old City. Never touted as a tourist attraction, it was dismissed as the poorer and more run-down part of town. Moreover, it was too far for a school-kid whose primary mode of transportation was a bicycle. So a decade after I’d left, and somewhat sheepishly armed with a Lonely Planet and a print-out of the UNESCO declaration, I returned to take a proper look at what had been right under my nose for half my life! I stayed in an old haveli (mansion) converted into a boutique hotel smack dab in the centre of the Old City and one of the first things I did was go on the early morning heritage walk organised by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. Its also called the “Mandir to Masjid” (temple to mosque) walk as it starts at the Swaminarayan Temple and ends at the Jama Masjid. 

Ahmedabad Travel Diary Part 1: Heritage Walk

The Old City is an amalgamation of densely packed clusters of houses called pols. Each pol is a self-contained neighbourhood – socially and architecturally homogenous – with families belonging to the same religion, and often caste and occupation. The idea was to try and minimise religious and sectarian tensions, which Gujarat is notorious for. Each pol has its own community well, temple or mosque, chowk (public square) and chabutara (bird-feeding tower). The people here really love feeding birds, some houses even have little earthen pots embedded in niches on their outer walls and filled with grain to feed the wayfaring parrot or pigeon. There is only one way into a pol with a security cabin at the entrance. The neighbourhood is crammed with culs-de-sac and secret passageways, the entrances to which are camouflaged to look like regular doorways of houses. This was to confuse any malevolent intruders and enable residents to go into hiding during invasions or communal riots. The streets and alleys are very narrow here, and the houses often have jutting facades which make the passageways feel even more cramped. The reasons for this are interesting. One, in a narrow street you are forced to make eye contact and smile or greet people passing by, this fosters personal bonds in the community. The second has to do with climatic conditions. Ahmedabad has very harsh summers and the narrow streets control sunlight and serve as wind-tunnels thus keeping the neighbourhoods cool on blistering summer afternoons. 

Many of the houses have embellished wooden facades with intricately carved doors, pillars, brackets, arches and balconies. The typical pol houses (like the refurbished haveli I stayed in) tend to be narrow and deep, two or three storeys high. An inner courtyard improves ventilation and light. The house also has its own system of harvesting rainwater which is collected in an underground tank. One of the prettiest corners in the heritage walk is the Kuvawalo Khancho where the houses display a variety of architectural styles – Hindu-Jain, Maratha, Persian and colonial. One house has the face of a Maratha man with the typical turban and handlebar moustache over the door. Another has Persian-style vines and leaves carved around horn-blowing cherubs. A house where a French couple lived for years has three curious female figurines over the door – one in Western attire, one in an Indian sari and a third eclectic one wearing a traditional bindi but with a tee-shirt, shorts and stout boots!

The pols are littered with several lovely marble Jain temples called derasars. Visitors have to be careful not to take any outside food or drink into a derasar, this is thought to pollute the sanctity of the shrine.

The Old City might seem to some as shabby and derelict but to me part of the charm was that it wasn’t a carefully preserved site of ancient ruins but a thriving bustling community with lines of colourful washing strung across the alleys, old women shelling peas and gossiping on coir cots outside their houses, and scooters tooting amiably as they zigzagged their way through the labyrinthine alleys.

Ahmedabad Travel Diary Part 2: The Mosques

I visited three mosques in the Old City. The biggest was built by Ahmed Shah in 1423 as the main Friday mosque of his new capital. The Jama Masjid epitomises the Indo-Saracenic style in which Persian architecture and Islamic principles of austerity meld with Hindu-Jain detailing and motifs. This was because the craftsmen employed by the Sultan to work on the mosque came from the local Hindu and Jain communities. The prayer hall here has 260 pillars and a separate mezzanine enclosure called the zenana with perforated stone screens behind which women used to pray. 

The second mosque I saw was Ahmed Shah’s private mosque built for the royal family in 1414, a small oasis of calm amidst the cacophony of traffic-clogged thoroughfares which encircle it. The pillars here, covered with sculpted ornamentation, are very unusual for a mosque and its because they were originally taken from a Hindu temple nearby. 

The third was the Sidi Saiyyed mosque built in 1572 by an Abyssinian nobleman who came from Ethiopia to Gujarat via Yemen. Its stunning stone latticework window (jali) depicting the tree of life is probably the most iconic image of Ahmedabad. There are ten such jalis in the mosque’s rear and side arches which shimmer as the sunlight streams through – definitely one of the prettiest prayer halls I’ve ever seen. 

Ahmedabad Travel Diary Part 3: Hutheesing Jain Temple

Finished with the trio of mosques, I went to the finest derasar in the city – the Hutheesing Jain Temple built by a wealthy Amdavadi businessman in 1848. The story goes that his family built the temple over two years in the midst of a crippling famine to provide employment for hundreds of workers and craftsmen in the area. Like in all Jain temples, cameras are not permitted inside but even just the outer facade has sumptuous marble figurines of dancing apsaras and musicians. A porticoed gallery containing 52 shrines to the Jain Tirthankaras encircles the main temple complex inside.

Ahmedabad Travel Diary Part 4: Adalaj

My final stop was Adalaj ni vav, a five storey deep step-well on the outskirts of Ahmedabad built in 1499. It has a rather tragic legend attached to it. Construction was started by Rana Veer Singh in the Solanki style of architecture. But before it was finished his kingdom was attacked by Mahmood Begada and Rana Veer Singh was killed in battle. Mahmood fell madly in love with his dead adversary’s beautiful wife Rani Roopba. She agreed to marry him on the condition that he first finish construction on the step well. Which is why Islamic floral and geometric patterns are found intermeshed with Hindu and Jain imagery of gods, goddesses, horses and elephants. When it was finally finished the queen jumped into the well and committed suicide to avoid marrying her husband’s killer – in keeping with Rajput tradition. Step-wells in those times were built as a refuge for weary travellers who could take shelter in any of the multiple landings and refresh themselves with the cool waters of the well. It was also a place of worship and a place where local women could gather and socialise. This subterranean cascade of pillared pavilions is another example of exquisite craftsmanship melded with a structure designed to provide relief from the elements.

There was one more place I visited but don’t have any pictures of since cameras were not allowed – the Calico Museum of Textiles – and I cannot recommend it enough. Guided tours are free, restricted to 20 people per day and prior booking is required but it is definitely worth the trouble. The carved wooden havelis which house the museum, the lush gardens, bougainvillaea trees, mosaic-tiled terraces and peacocks strutting around are reason enough to stop by. The museum has an impressive collection of tribal costumes, saris, shawls, carpets, pichwais (religious wall hangings). The sheer variety of regional embroideries and weaves on display from the patolas of Patan, the tie-and-dye bandhani of Gujarat, ikat weave and kalamkari hand-painted fabrics, painstakingly detailed silk needlework and glittering gold zari embroidery are a fitting tribute to India’s rich textile heritage in the heart of a city which has been a thriving hub for textile trade and exports for nearly 2000 years.