KADAK BADSHAHI - When Ahmedabad Happens

Here is my take on the on the recent performance of Kadak Badshahi that I witnessed in Ahmedabad...

For someone who grew up in this glorious city of Ahmedabad and moved out at the prime of the youth, without knowing what this city is all about or the so intriguing history of how the city came into existence the play Kadak Badshahi was a perfect eye-opener and an echo to most of my questions and qualms about the present situation of the city.

The experience of the play starts the moment you step into the gates of the venue and walk towards the amphitheater. There are small floats and stalls that are a live experience of the joys we Amdavadis enjoy on a regular basis and have started taking for granted… be it the food, the garba, the colors and the explosions of experiences. I for once was completely speechless and mesmerized with the experience here and the play hadn’t even started.

I will try not to share the spoilers as the play is an experience in totality and I don’t want to spoil it for you by telling you everything about it, yet I will give you enough enticement of why you don’t want to miss it for anything.

The play starts with the history of Ahmedabad, the famous story of the rabbits getting together and winning over the wild dogs… there are multiple audio-visual treats all over the venue going on and you as a spectator will not want to blink your eyes worrying that you might miss out on some of the grandeur of the performances on the stage and the “screens”

The cast of the play was almost 50 if not more, and I shouldn’t be calling it a play, it is more of a performance or a treat to your audio visual senses. The performance very easily and convincingly blends the history of some of the very famous monuments of the city, and how they got their names or why some of the things that happen there that are happening and you forgot to notice.

There are also very subtle yet strong digs taken on the government and the administration from the Amdavadis’ perspective that the performers have portrayed very candidly yet with perfect conviction. Most of the audience will remember the stories of the famous foods and drinks that we are so used to in Ahmedabad, but the performance also pointedly asks and probes you as an Amdavadi to think what is happening to your city.

The multiple times of the cast asking us the audience, “what the city was and what did you do to it?” was an echo to my feelings and frustration that I have experienced as a ‘returning’ Amdavadi. For the past decade, I have visited this city as a ‘guest’ live here for a week and fly back to my base… this time, I was here for over 3 months, and at every step on the way I asked myself why? What the F@#& happened to the city I left a decade ago? This time I roamed on the roads and experienced this city as a part of the population.

There are many parts in the performance that will completely move you and bring you to tears when they talk about the goings on of the city and the historical significance of it all… be it the story of the Kankaria lake, or the Ellis bridge, or the story of a flower vendor selling her wares on a carpet on the roads outside the Bhadrakali temple.

The performers keep reminding us how the gardens, and forests gave way to the concrete jungle over these years and how the normal Amdavadi has become apathetic, money minded and worried about only one thing “what is in it for me?” there is also a very emphatic statement that lingers in your head well after you walk out, the rough translation of it is “Lakshmi doesn’t mean money, it means prosperity”

The finale of the performance is one of the best I have seen in my life, a glorious celebration of the foods, drinks and everything of Ahmedabad, the audience are so involved in this that they are thrilled when someone hands out gotas and vadas during the performance… guess I have told too much about it already.

Bottom line is that if you are an Amdavadi, or curious about Ahmedabad or someone who has lived here even for a few months… you MUST watch this play and relive your experience of the great city of Ahmedabad. My kudos to the never ageing and every graceful Mallika Sarabhai who not only is part of the performance but also directed the play with Yadavan Chandran and Nisarg Trivedi. You all have created history, let me rephrase, you have recreated history.  

Homecoming

Coming home was never so much fun!

This was the first time when I rolled the RedEye in the compound of our Ashima apartment in Ahmedabad… this was around 22:30 on December 23, 07. My parents had no clue that I was going to ride all the way from B’lore to Abad (they in fact were expecting me to step out of the airport the next evening) thanks to the changed looks that I developed overtime (courtesy wifey) my mum didn’t even know who this guy with long curly hair and a goatee was! I had to actually convince my parents that it was actually me and that I had ridden all the way from Bangalore in 2 days.

Oh JOY! Papaji threatened that if I was any younger and living with them, I would’ve been grounded by now for doing such ‘insane heroics’ he and mumma actually reprimanded the wifey for letting me ‘do such stupid stunts’ thankfully she was brave, bold and smart enough to keep her feet down and talk some sense back to them… after around 2 hours of arguments, discussions, consolations and making-ups they accepted the facts and came to terms that their little boy has finally decided to grow older, a bit grown up but still does the childish insanities :D we all finally slept happy, they happy to see their son after almost a year, the wifey happy to have her hubby back and me just happy to be back ‘home’! To get a decent bed after over 40hours of being on the roads and one heck of a saddle-sore ride…

The next morning all charged and renewed! Mumma and the wifey had a prior appointment scheduled with their beautician so I was all free to do nothing! I called up the local RE showroom in Ahmedabad and scheduled myself an impromptu appointment with the mechanic there to get RedEye’s few knick-knacks fixed. When I reached there I realized that there were only 3 mechs, one supervisor and the store owner there! I mean c’mon! Here in B’lore even the small mech has 3 helpers… but who cares as long as I get my things done? The people there were mighty impressed to see RedEye, she is a BIG & LOUD bike, those of you who haven’t seen her in real life, lemme tell you a few interesting things that you might notice about her… she’s got a monster 20L tank (almost double of the stock tank) a ‘Goldie’ exhaust (which means that the firing is louder and more meatier) she’s got 2 extra auxiliary head lamps, extra horns so basically my bike is bigger, louder, brighter and makes more noise on road to grab attention.

Anyways, the mech felt very happy to work on a bike that had traveled almost 1650kms without a single glitch in only 2 days which included enuff pit stops and a night-halt at Pune. I was given special treatment there and I felt so happy! After everything was done, they didn’t charge me a penny for whatever they did! Wow! Now this is what we call good customer support :D

Came back home and had some amazing ‘mumma made’ lunch at home, dozed off in the afternoon for a while and just lazed the day around… all the days that followed were full of lazing around, socializing, driving around in papaji’s car and having a ball at home!


One of those days we did a day trip to Rajkot. Left pretty early from A’bad to make sure that we don’t face too much of the gujarati heat. I was still in my biker mindset when I sat in the car; I have sort of decided that for any ride longer than 200kms we should stop only after 100kms. Papaji was not very happy with this idea coz he likes to stop at almost all the roadside dhabas and try the different food there, he is one absolute foodie and I guess I get my taste buds and passion for food :D we reached Rajkot pretty well in time! The first stop here was to meet Dilip uncle, he runs the ‘Prakruti parivar’ (nature family) and has a great knowledge about animals… we started talking about keeping pets at home and he suggested we get a pair of tortoises, and then told us so much about almost all the animals (and birds and reptiles) that we can keep at our Bangalore home as pets. From here we went out to meet Jaleshbhai (the guy who has an amazing toy store and now also a great bakery) saw his progress in life, felt very happy talking to him and moved on to Omkarbhai’s place, I was thrilled to finally meet his sweet dog Mary… also saw his collection of lovebirds and his tortoises… this made me realize how much both the wifey and I miss a pet in our life and that unless something about our long-term plans is finalized we wouldn’t be able to get anything :(

The day progressed into evening and then slowly started slipping in the night, we had a long way to travel before we hit the sack so around 8ish in the evening we finally headed back towards Ahmedabad, we again were making good time, but the endless lines of trucks and their blazing highbeams made the drive pretty uncomfortable, besides I was feeling a bit tired and sleepy. We stopped for dinner at a hotel, had some khichadi-kadhi (which by-the-way could’ve well been a dog’s dinner) and rolled out, just as we got on the road the car started handling weird and we discovered a puncture in one of the front tires. Thankfully we were close to a puncture repair shop and the whole episode got over in around 30minutes without any major repercussions. We started back again and now the road just seemed unending! The wifey offered to drive the rest of the way, I happily agreed and swapped seats with her… we reached home and just crashed out, what a day!

One more highlights of my stay home this time was the 2 different sets of puppies we had in the society, one set of five pups near the main gate and the second set of 3 in the back garden. I played so much with them!!! Most of my conscious time was spent with the pups and by the time I left, they actually recognized every time I stepped out of the house :)

I was supposed to ride back to Bangalore, leave on the morning of January 2 and reach home by late 4th or early 5th but I had so much fun this time at home that I just didn’t feel like going away or getting back from home. Finally I agreed to papaji’s plan of putting RedEye on a transporter’s truck and staying back a couple days so that I can fly back with the wifey on 5th. This was a relief for all of us! My parents didn’t want me to ride back coz “its too dangerous and something might happen to me” , the wifey wanted to spend more time with me in Ahmedabad and just wanted to revisit a few of the places we dated at in A’bad before our wedding, and finally I didn’t want to ride the same way again back, if I was riding I wanted to do a non-stopper all the way to B’lore but I realized that it would’ve been a blind-man’s bluff and both the bike and I would’ve taken a huge toll, which I was not sure about taking…

Anyways, I finally left Ahmedabad in a jet-plane on the 5th morning and got back to B’lore, after coming back I had to wait a grueling 6days before I actually got the bike back in my hands, she came back in a very bad state, the lamps were busted, there were major scratches on the fenders and tank and she just had gotten too dirty to recognize! I took her to the mech and kept her there for 3days, finally she got revived and she roared back on the roads of Bangalore… as they say in Hindi, ‘ant bhala to sab bhala’

Honestly, after this trip, I’ve decided that I need to get back to Ahmedabad, am done living alone here, we can do with some ‘family warmth’ both the wifey and I are keen on moving back ‘home’ now… pray for us that we finally find a way back home :D

Cheers!