Heritage walk,: Ahmadabad 2012-01-30

Swaminath Temple, Tour started here

 Cooking first thing in the morning

 Sharing the living space with cows, dogs and birds

 Making flower garlands for the Temple

 Antenna and The monkey

 Washing the Dishes under Supervision

 Pol and the scooters

 Life in the Pol

 Washing the clothes in the morning

 Washing

Puppies everywhere

Jami Mosque with Hindu and Jain Architecture

Hathisingh Temple: Jain Temple

We took a Heritage walk through the old city. A bit of history lesson is in order at this point : Ahmadabad was formed by the king Ahmad Shah in 1400's . He came for hunting and fell in love with the village by the river. Muslims, Hindus and Jains live here since then. Old city is a walled city with 14 gates going to different parts of India . It is said that Emperor Jahangir and his wife , Mumtaj ( of Taj Mahal reference) used to come here for vacations. 
Old city consists of "POLS" , a word derived from a Sanskrit word meaning gated community. Each pol has a gate, a common area where people of the POL live as a community ( see the pictures) . These are clean and average middle class people live here. Some people have been here for generations and they love to live as a community. A POL can be of 10 families to 300 families and have bird feeders, temples, Mosques and of course cows and lots of dogs ( no cats) .
 The tour started from the temple and ended at the Mosque. We saw about ten tourists( Americans) . Tour was conducted by the volunteer and was quite informative. The Mosque was beautiful and unique in that it has  Jain and Hindu architecture. One of the POL had a church in it too.
IN the afternoon we visited the a Jain Temple ( 160 years old) , very nice carvings. Now, just relaxing and listening to Jagdish and his friend talk. The daughter in law is cooking fresh Indian food. I will be very spoiled after six weeks in India :) It is our last day here, I will miss the Peacocks, the kids and Shivani. May be more stuff will come out of SEWA and we will be back in few years. It has been a very pleasant and productive stay in Ahmadabad. It is a clean city full of NRIs :)