Be Warned: Malicious, concocted content ahead
Firstly, I am not a morning person. And definitely not one, intending to leave the room of snorers, to step out into the hot (not fashionably) morning. But one gulp of H’s famous morning green tea with a dash of lemon and voila!
I’ve a lot to say about Devil Shaw, and say I will. But suffices for now, to mention his lack of information sharing and utterly deplorable detailing. He lay a good table though – pan fried river fish marinated in 52 spices with mustard, potato fritters, sago roundels and downed with insipid home brewed wine, aged for so long that the alcohol had died unannounced. 2008 was a better year. We had excellent wine then. I gather the grapes used were bitter about the recession this year.
Let’s go back for a moment to the night before. Over a liqueur tasting session, I had to choose from going to a sun temple, ruins, family village, parched river and heaven knows what else. We did not make any choice on that neither did we want to choose between the Cherry Coffee Liqueur (bought ten years ago and forgotten or hidden), Almond Liq. and Cointreau. Quaffed it on the rocks and soon I realized morning was already there.
So onwards to Himmat Nagar. This was where one of the farts from Wiz of Oz went to get courage it is rumoured, as it is humoured. And then we drove on and on and on and on and reversed the car and ploughed on, only to reverse again. Reached dead ends and funnily drove to it several times.
And that was how my weekend was ruined.
15th century Jain Temple ruins. Made of sandstone and preserved by the Gujarat Govt. in a place called Abhapur (Polo). Distressing though is how someone intends to add brick and concrete to restore this beautifully carved structure. There were some odd animal like carvings. See pix and see whether you can place them in Animalia or Fantasia. Your guess is as good as mine.
H and Devil Shaw and yours untruly scaled the temple columns just for the fun of it. Ascending it was fun, except for H, who ripped his denims. He wanted to know whether that gave the denims a distressed look. OK. So you decide. 2 ft of ripped denim starting at the waist running down the thigh till the knee. You get the picture and sorry for the vivid description. But you needed to know.
Devil Shaw knew of another ruin. And so we repeat the reversing, dead ends, driving for ever and then see these ruins. Which were truly ruined by the govt. so much for expecting tourists. Interesting though how the trunk of the tree weaves itself around the sandstone and supports it and the play of light and shadow is almost sacred grove like.
Needless to mention we’d carried enough of breakfast to last us a lifetime. Do in Gujjuland like the Gugs do. Pffada with Jalebi, Khandvi, Khaman, Samosa, Dal Wadi and insufficient water.
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