Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad was founded in 1411 by Sultan Ahmad Shah I of the Gujarat Sultanate on the east bank of the Sabarmati, near the older settlement of Ashaval and the Chaulukya-era town of Karnavati. Within a century it was one of the wealthiest cities in western India, its sultans building the Jama Masjid, Bhadra Fort and a wall pierced by a dozen gates, and its craftsmen turning out textiles traded as far as the Red Sea. The Mughals took Gujarat in 1573 and governed from the city; Shah Jahan lived here as a prince, and the merchant houses that grew up in this period gave the walled town its pols, gated lanes of shared courtyards and carved wooden houses.

Decline in the 18th century, under contested Maratha and Mughal rule, was reversed after the British annexed the city in 1818. A railway arrived in 1864, and in 1861 the merchant Ranchhodlal Chhotalal opened the first mechanised textile mill, beginning a century in which Ahmedabad was known as the Manchester of India, with dozens of mills and a large workforce drawn from the countryside. The mill labour movement produced the Textile Labour Association, founded in 1918 by Gandhi.

Gandhi made the city his base, founding the ashram at Sabarmati in 1917 and setting out from it on the Salt March to Dandi in 1930. After independence Ahmedabad served as the capital of Gujarat until the seat of government moved to the newly built Gandhinagar in the 1970s. The mills closed through the 1980s, throwing tens of thousands out of work, and the city was scarred by communal violence, most severely in 2002. It has since grown outward across the river and beyond, and in July 2017 the walled city was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Ahmedabad is a merchant city, and its character reflects that: careful with money, family-centred, strongly vegetarian and deeply influenced by Jainism as well as Hinduism and Islam. Gujarati is the language of the street, with Hindi and English common in business. Jain and Hindu festivals fill the calendar, and the eleven days of Paryushan, when many Jains fast, are widely observed.

The great public festival is Uttarayan in mid-January, when the sky above the old city fills with kites flown from rooftops and families spend the day on terraces with sesame sweets. Navratri brings nine nights of garba, a circular dance performed to live music in grounds and courtyards across the city; the Rath Yatra procession in the monsoon is the third largest of its kind in India, after those at Puri and Kolkata. Craft traditions are strong, from bandhani tie-dye and mirror-work embroidery to block printing, and the National Institute of Design and the Calico Museum have made the city a centre for design and textile study.

Architecture is an unusual local pride. The sultanate monuments mix Islamic forms with Hindu and Jain stone carving, and in the 20th century Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, B. V. Doshi and Charles Correa all built here, drawn by industrialist patrons. Ahmedabad is also inseparable from Gandhi's memory, and the ashram remains a place of pilgrimage for Indian visitors.

About 5.6 million people lived in the city at the 2011 census, with more in the surrounding urban area, making it the largest city in Gujarat and one of the largest in India. The economy has shifted from textile mills to chemicals, pharmaceuticals, engineering, diamonds and a large services and education sector; the state capital, Gandhinagar, lies 25 km north, and the financial district of GIFT City is being built between the two.

Life divides between the two banks. The walled city remains dense and sociable, its pols home to long-settled families, though many have moved out and some houses stand empty; the west bank holds the universities, offices, malls and gated apartment complexes where most middle-class residents now live. Workers from Saurashtra, Rajasthan and Bihar fill the construction sites and markets.

Days start early, with temple visits and walks along the riverfront before the heat, and business hours are long; evenings bring families to Kankaria Lake, Law Garden and the food streets. The persistent issues are heat, which is becoming more severe and has prompted one of India's first city heat action plans, air pollution in winter, traffic on the western arterial roads, and the unevenness between the prosperous suburbs and the older eastern districts.

Ahmedabad eats Gujarati food, which is vegetarian, lightly sweetened and served in many small portions. The full thali is the defining meal: bowls of dal, kadhi made with yoghurt and gram flour, two or three vegetable dishes, a fried farsan snack, rotli, rice, pickles, buttermilk and a sweet, refilled until the diner stops. Winter brings undhiyu, a slow-cooked mix of root vegetables, beans and spiced dumplings traditionally buried in an earthen pot, eaten with puri and jalebi around Uttarayan.

Snacks, or farsan, are a category of their own: steamed dhokla and khaman of fermented gram flour, rolled khandvi, fried fafda served with papaya chutney, patra of spiced colocasia leaves, and thepla flatbreads made with fenugreek that travel well. Fafda and jalebi together are the Sunday morning ritual. Dabeli, a spiced potato filling in a bread roll with pomegranate and sev, came from Kutch and is sold on every busy street.

Manek Chowk, a jewellery market by day, becomes a night food bazaar of griddled sandwiches, dosas, pav bhaji, kulfi and ice creams, and the lanes around Teen Darwaza fry bhajiya through the afternoon. Sweets include mohanthal of gram flour and ghee, ghari, basundi of reduced milk and shrikhand, strained yoghurt with cardamom and saffron. Chai stalls are everywhere; alcohol is not sold, as Gujarat is a dry state, and sugarcane juice, chaas and soda with lime take its place.