PALANPUR-MEHSANA HIGHWAY
We arrived in Mehsana, by Ashram car with a driver from Virampur, at about noon or so. I took many photographs and a couple of videos along the way. Until Palanpur we were on curving country roads. There we got onto the Palanpur-Mehsana highway that was either four lane or six lanes all the way along. But, unlike the expressway in Sri Lanka, which was a toll road, this road had access all the way along and while divided had many places where you could safely cross over or go back, more like Patton Avenue in West Asheville. And while there were mostly trucks and buses and cars there were also a good number of motor rickshaws and lots of motorcycles and even an occasional camel cart off to the side and a few cows that had wandered across the highway into the median strip where the attempts to grow flowers or shrubs was mostly a failure. There where shops and businesses lining much of the road and when going through cities were all kinds of shopping centers and other businesses. I tried to video a little of it. This is the usual route for Shilpa, who usually goes by bus when she comes home on the weekends.
We stopped once, at the Bliss Food Court, where we ate outdoors in the shade of a tree. The indoor food court featured a number of restaurant stalls, one of which was Subway. I didn’t think to go up and photograph its menu but I can guarantee that it offered nothing that is offered in the Swannanoa Subway, certainly no choices of meats.
The outdoor stand where Shilpa ordered our late breakfast had nothing that I recognized from my time in north India, except for orange super sweet jalebies. Instant Nasta, instant breakfast sounds Western, Desi Nasta is Gujarati breakfast.
I videoed the last of the highway in Mehsana and the right turn and ride to Shilpa’s house. Unfortunately I forgot to turn it off at the end and haven’t yet learned how to remove the beginning and end of a video. I have a few photos of her house, often photos of family members. I will take more later.
We are here in Mehsana for the night on our way to three days of wedding festivities in Ahmedabad for Mansi, the surgeon daughter of Hasmukh’s brother, Jitubhai, a doctor who a few years ago was elected president of the All India Medical Society is also a supporter of Hasmukh’s tribal village work. It will be an enormous event which I found out about after buying my ticket to come. I have known Mansi since she was a girl and really like her. I look forward to the wedding.
Consider that everyone at every wedding event will be dressed in brilliant clothing like this and I have only a grey sweater, sneakers, blue pants and a T-shirt.
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Hitendrabhai, father, with family, at Nidhi’s wedding.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 