Pronouncing Jamnagar involves
opening with the eponymous syllable that evokes the grandeur of the Ja’am Sahibs
before settling into the rather mundane Na-gar. Jaam-na-gar. Rise-Thud-Thud. I found
the mundaneness first.
A drab highway cut across arid
plains. Saurashtra stretched ahead. An industrial behemoth would appear every
now and then - an ugliness of pipes and tubes - a product of the infertile
soil. Hot air pelted the face. Blazing heat bared everything even as it forced
shut the eyelids. Existence seemed a weariness. When it seemed to wear on
forever, the car veered off the highway, depositing me firmly into a two-month
internship. Engaging work held me six days out of seven. The gloom of the
seventh loomed as the week neared its end. I fled each time, returning to the highway,
seeking new places. I found them in various corners of the peninsula.
I saw the uneasy truce forged
between land, river and sea at Dwarka.
How illusory was the concept of ground beneath one’s feet! If ever there was
credence to the frequent mythological refrain of land being reclaimed from sea,
here was living proof. A land so precariously perched amidst the watchful eyes
of predatory waters that have enveloped it many a time in the past that an
encore always seemed imminent.
Somnath, rather inevitably given its
history, had acquired the air of a defiant bastion. A quality prized by any
nation-state entity; the Government had wasted no opportunity in championing
the place as a metaphor for the state itself. Stateliness pervaded the approach
to the imposing Shikara. Just in case the scale and significance did not
register, the mighty figure of Sardar Patel stood to the right of the pathway
named after him with a gaze firmly affixed on what he’d commissioned. There was
no trifling with this institution, everything seemed to be saying.
Spurned upon my
first approach to Gir, I was obliged
the second time. What I saw and heard hinted at considerable duress. The guides
cited numbers of attrition - “Kaafi marte
hain har saal trains ke vaje se” referring to the Junagadh-Delvada railway
line that scythes across the forest. There was talk of imbalance in the fragile
food chain. The Maldhari community that lived in the forest, historically
amicable with the lions, had recently been reporting more than the odd
skirmish. Among the success stories of Indian Wildlife Conservation, it seemed
Gir still wasn’t immune to the maladies gripping other sanctuaries and national
parks.
At Modhera, I saw timeless beauty both concealed
and heightened by the commonplace around it. Like its more famous sister in the
east, Konark, the Sun Temple here was also a victim of rapacious advance but to
a lesser degree. Modhera, however, was not the beneficiary of a well-laid out
introduction which meant that it just appeared at one juncture. As I lingered,
the vision became more and more real. What gained lasting permanence though was an idea I’d been introduced to at Pattadakkal – stone has matchless eloquence.
Spurred on by what
I’d found every time I’d journeyed with an open mind. I ventured Jamnagar
itself. Despite the many industrial encroachments that have sprung up in its
outskirts and lent it a name on the industrial world map, Jamnagar town itself
remained quite untouched by this. The old had not made way for the new here. A
walk through the town, its many alleyways and lanes was an exercise in piecing
together the erstwhile Nawanagar through its many dilapidated edifices, arched darwazas, turrets, minarets, havelis and
the Darbargarh Palace.
Jamnagar’s most
recent evocation of the past, the statue of Maharaja Kumarsinghji Ranjitsinghji
commanding centre stage of the panoramic sweep of Darbargarh Palace, had me
longing for another statue elsewhere that froze him in the nonchalant audacity
of his leg glance, for Ranji (as he was known in cricketing circles) was also the
first Indian batsman extraordinaire. His shot-making may have had a
long-lasting influence on the development of the batting aesthetic itself in
cricket and thereby shaped the vocabulary that has been handed to us. From a
tribute by that doyen of cricket writers, Neville Cardus, one may glean this
and more: “Before him English cricket was
English through and through … but when Ranji batted, a strange light from the
East flickered in the English sunshine”.
With regard to
Jamnagar’s cricketing legacy, Ranji was not all however. In his wake, came the
nearly-as-brilliant Duleep, his nephew. Two decades after Duleep, Jamnagar produced an all-rounder
matched since only by Kapil Dev. Mulvantrai Himmatlal Mankad or Vinoobhai as he
was known in typical Gujarati fashion was India’s star for a decade after
independence. Fittingly, he will always be seen poised in his delivery stride
at Mankad Circle, Jamnagar. I was excited to find cricket in such healthy and
unexpected doses in what had seemed like some outback of India. Furthering the
analogy about pronunciation, I’d done away with Nagar first and was now
relishing the upswing of Jaaaam. Curious points of trivia and amusement on this
ascendant were things like India’s only extant Ayurvedic University with
courses and programmes in learning the ancient healing system, and a Bala
Hanuman Mandir which currently sits in the Guinness Book of Records for having
featured non-stop chanting since 1967.
One evening, I
visit the temple and find it tucked away in a corner on the avenue that retains
a sense of quietude despite the chanting inside and the chatter outside. Around
the sunset hour though, neither is a match for the twitter from the true
inheritors of Jamnagar – the birds. The avenue and the lake transform into an
avian spectacle as parakeets, egrets, pond herons, spoonbills, flamingos,
pelicans, swallows and thrushes descend upon the setting. A quiet town suddenly
seems abuzz with activity as hundreds of birds flit about from one tree to
another. This seems to stir people out of their general torpor and infuses the
scene with energy. The twilight lasts an hour after which the lake, the avenue
and the surrounding areas settle into a dullness of Chaat outlets, sugarcane
vendors and other hawkers. The birds have left and they appear to have taken back
that which they bestowed upon the scene.
That Gujarat is
a birder’s delight is in itself a well-kept secret. That Jamnagar should be the
state’s representative in this regard is perhaps not known at all even to
travel aficionados in India. In 2010, the town hosted the first Global Bird
Watcher’s Conference (an initiative of the Gujarat Govt.) at Khijadiya, a part-marshland
part-grassland ecosystem with freshwater lakes and saltwater marshes. It is a
birding haven much on the lines of Bharatpur (near Agra) only without similar
status from the Ramsar Convention (protects wetlands in the world). Khijadiya
in winter provides a transit to rare migratory birds from Russia and Central
Asia like the Demoiselle Crane, the Bar-Headed Goose, Eurasian Wigeon and many
others. This year (2013), the GBWC is scheduled to be held at Dhordo (gateway
to the Greater Rann of Kutch).
Much of this
owes to Jamnagar’s unique location on the lower shore of the Gulf of Kutch. The
placid waters adjoining the entire shoreline of the Jamnagar district and the
islands that dot the coast are collectively designated as a Marine National
Park. Some of these islands are accessible from Jamnagar, easiest among them
being Narara Bet. A trip to Narara had proved elusive during my internship
stint in Jamnagar.
On a later
visit, it happens in fortuitous fashion through a random query directed at a
cabbie about directions, information and the like. It turns out that he belongs
to a family that had been staying at the entry point of Narara for over 30
years, in what I later find to be a middle-of-nowhere with not even a shack for
miles. As awareness about the place grew, the powers that were had swooped in
to take notice and soon recognition followed. The family had stuck to their
place however and were now the unofficial caretakers of a vast and unique seascape.
I say recognition with some reservations however, since Marine National Park is
still not likely to feature in the average conversation about flora and fauna
in Gujarat. Gir, Blackbuck and Rann of Kutch would be the dominant names.
Such relative anonymity serves
someone looking for a quiet interaction with environs quite well as the place
bears the air of an untouched paradise. One can wade through waters that graduate
from ankle deep to thigh deep and observe marine life in the company of a naturalist.
Crabs abound, holed up in the shelter of rocks. The spider crab with the many
thorns on its skin is a prickly creature to hold in one’s palm. The withdrawal
of the sea anemone into the soft seabed upon touch is a wondrous thing to
behold. Corals, in addition to being such an important cog in the ecosystem,
add glitter and pattern to the water surface. Wading proves immensely addictive
and we zone in on an octopus the size of a hand after two hours of journeying
further into the gulf. It seems to gain in colour once out of water. Its
release of colour upon being released into the water again is a natural science
lesson at close quarters. Only exhaustion after a four-hour excursion in these
waters proves a detriment to further exploration. I return sated.
Today, I find
it both appropriate and odd that I had to discover the delights of the town I
was in after having wandered the rest of Gujarat. In travel, the truism that familiarity
breeds contempt finds its most pressing reinforcement.
