My daughter always wanted to buy something very traditional in Gujarat. We went looking for some nice gaghras, something bandhini or bandhani work material etc etc and some jewellery specially metal.
Our friends, arrived a couple of months earlier in Ahmedabad, called two autos for all nine of us and we were bit skeptical. My husband even insisted for an aircon taxi to be safe from all the dust. But our friend insisted that we go by auto.
As we reached Relief Road, I completely understood my friend's point. This part of Ahmedabad was so crowded that if left alone, I will prefer to walk. I was told that because of the holiday (24th Dec) the crowd is a little bit more.
Very skillfully the auto fellow drove us to Central Bank of India and asked us to get down to take a walk. I was too scared even to think of getting out of the auto. He pointed to the road opposite and asked us to walk around and look for everything and anything we want to buy. He promised to pick us up when we finish our shopping. He gave us his number.
This place along the Ratan Pole Road, Tankshal, has variety of fancy material. However, when we asked for something more authentic, with a touch of ethnicity, we were told to go to Rani no Hajiro. For me, who has no knowledge of Gujrati, all I could I understand was Rani and Haji. Where is it? Non of us understood how to go there.
We said many thanks to a kind shop fellow (he is kind and angel because he spoke to us even after we told him we are not interested in his merchandise. Others just ignored us) who told us in clear Hindi to move forward and go to the end of the road.
We reached the end of the road to Gandhi Road. We asked a few around and didn't get any reply. May be they didn't understand our Hindi. We marched ahead past a huge 'Mukhwas' shop into a smaller lane. Here, NOBODY knew where is Rani no Hajiro!!!!!
We all started getting tired and irritated. Then an old man pointed his finger towards a small lane, which in normal circumstances we would have walked past without a second thought.
Whola!!!! There inside this small lane, we found what we wanted!!! Hand made jewellery, very ethnic style gaghra cholies, and shoes. Lovely collection and reasonably priced. The shop owners were not at all pushy in their sales. They were very patient to show us almost everything they have!!
