Rajkot

A hand-woven silk sari in production. This type of sari takes 10 days to manufacture, with threads that have been individually hand dyed.

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We arrived on a train, travelling second class, direct from Junagadh.  When it pulled into the station at Rajkot, there was an utter riot on the platform, absolutely chaotic craziness:  it was virtually impossible to get off the train because of the boarding passengers who were trying to secure seats.  I shouted a lot, and managed to hold people back and stop them from getting on the train until I pushed my way through and got off.  I thought John and Steph were behind me, but my valiant efforts were wasted, as they had done the sensible thing and got off the train on the side without a platform.  While I waited for the others, I watched a policeman bashing people with a big stick.

I had the great honour in Rajkot of being the guest of the Jadeja's - a great land-owning and governing royal family here in Gujarat.  We celebrated Diwali at the home of a successful businessman, about 40km out of Rajkot; we visited a farm and the villagers in the Jadeja-owned and managed countryside; and Steph and I had the great honour of meeting with Mayur Raja, the (would-have-been had the British not granted India its independence) Crown Prince of Rajkot.

Cotton on a farm just outside Rajkot. During the American civil war, India became the largest supplier of cotton to Britain. Peanuts are also grown on the farm. Gujarat supplies sixty percent of India's groundnut (peanut) oil.

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I also visited Rajkumar College in Rajkot.  It is a public boy's school, originally founded for the education of Indian princes, based on the model of education at Oxbridge, and with, until 1992, a English cantabrigian as principal.  The college itself is an example of the association here in India between wealth and status, and the West.  Indian Rajas have been sending their sons to be educated in England for centuries, even before the East of India Trading Company established itself in the sub-continent, and certainly before India was British.  In homes of wealth and success, you find European furniture and art, celebrating the relationship with the West, just as in the stately homes of England you might find art and furniture celebrating the 'Orient'.  I think the connection between India and the West is strongest here amongst the wealthy and successful, and so association with the West is a aspirational quality.  It is the wealthiest people of India who dress in Western clothes, and live more 'western' lives.

Interestingly and importantly though, association with the West is not at odds with Indian national pride.  To have western clothes and art in your home may be aspirational, but Indians do not at all aspire actually to be Western.

And I'm told that there is a movement of Indian pride, strongest in the south of the country, that opposes association with the West (and especially America).

Another thing that I noticed about the several homes that I visited in and around Rajkot was the veneration of senior members of the family and of the family's ancestors.  The eldest members of the family are treated with great respect - and not just by guests!  (Salmon Rushdie writes in Midnight's Children that, unlike European people, Indian people grow only more powerful with old age.)  On the walls at home are portraits of grandfathers, and grandfathers' fathers, and grandfathers' fathers' fathers.  I think it shows consciousness of and gratitude for where the family has come from, and it's the kind of cultural detail that makes me think that there may be aspects of our culture in Britain in which we are tending towards shallowness.

We caught a bus from Rajkot to Bhuj.