Twenty-four hours in Ahmedabad: A quick guide to India’s first UNESCO World Heritage City

“If I had known our flight would be delayed so much, I would have gone to the gym,” says a young man standing in front of me to his female companion. As I wait to board, sleep-deprived and slightly nauseous, thanks to a plate of flinty airport idlis, I cannot help but agree.I am worried: I am supposed to be in Ahmedabad by now for the last two days of the Ahmedabad Cultural Week (ACW) — a city-wide celebration of heritage and art — and with so little time to cover an event spread over 18 venues, every moment is precious.By the time we land, five hours behind schedule, I am exhausted, running mostly on black coffee and trail mix. But I perk up as we skim through the city’s wide roads and check my watch — 3.00 pm. I have exactly 24 hours before my flight home.3.45 pm: Check into my hotel located on the Sarkhej–Gandhinagar Highway, head out to grab a quick sandwich and then return to my room for a much-needed power nap. At the ceramics exhibition at the KCA | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement 4.30 pm: I book a cab to the Kanoria Centre for Arts in Navrangpura, one of the 18 venues of the Ahmedabad Cultural Week, one of the many art and culture hubs of the city. Established in 1984 by Urmila Kanoria, with the inaugural stone laid by the late MF Husain and the low-rise, exposed-brick buildings on the campus designed by legendary architect B. V. Doshi, the space bustles with life —rowds thronging here to eat at the canteen, shop at an ongoing ceramic exhibition, or just see art.I first head to the Urmila Art Gallery, where, as part of ACW, a group exhibition, ‘Impressions: The Human Footprint on a Warming Earth’, bringing together over 80 printmakers and showcasing more than 14 printmaking styles, approaches and creative processes, is being held. The installation from Games People Play | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement A few yards away, at the Urmila Kailash Black Box (UKBB), is the third iteration of Thukral & Tagra’s ‘Games People Play’, a multi-iterative, interactive conceptual art project and exhibition series, which “explores play as a psychological, social and political condition, shaped by present-day anxieties,” as the gallery wall text puts it.I spend some time walking past stacks of yellow ping-pong balls with various objects embedded in them, table-tennis tables in different shapes and patterns, and a gorgeous art series titled Dominus Aeris: Flux, which examines migration, displacement, and the impact of modern agriculture.I then hop over to the Hutheesing Visual Art Centre next door, where textile artist Durga Kainthola’s unusual silkworm-centred solo exhibition, ‘Entangled Breath, A Living Archive of Earth’, is being held, examining ideas of human-nature coexistence, compassion and sustainable living.After an artist-led walkthrough, followed by a quick traipse through the ceramic exhibition at Kanoria, I am off to my next stop. Amrita Sher-Gil: A Life Lived was staged at the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement 8.30 pm: At the entrance of the building that houses the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, also one of the ACW venues, I am greeted by two large portraits of its founders, Mrinalini and Vikram Sarabhai. Designed by Achyut Kanvinde, the campus, which houses classrooms, offices, a library, a gallery and a cafe, is a nature-lovers’ delight, with the boundaries between the great outdoors and the built environment exceedingly porous.The pièce de résistance, at least for me, is Natarani, Darpana's open-air amphitheatre nestled in the heart of campus and one of the city’s most vibrant performance spaces. Under star-studded skies, we watch Amrita Sher-Gil: A Life Lived, a 60-minute English-language stage production by the Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust, designed and directed by Dadi D. Pudumjee.10:00 pm: I walk across to Tummy Tikki Burger, a small but quaint spot five minutes away from Darpana, for dinner. The pasta and garlic bread are exactly what I need after a long, tiring day: generously portioned, piping hot and smothered in vast quantities of melty processed cheese. By the time I head back to the hotel, I'm sleepy but very satiated.9 am: My plans to embark on the famous Mandir to Masjid Ahmedabad heritage walk, a detailed, early-morning exploration of Ahmedabad held every Sunday, beginning at the Swaminarayan Temple and ending at the Jama Masjid, followed by a jalebi-laden breakfast, ended up being aborted by a faulty phone alarm.Instead, after fuelling myself with a plate of poha, I set off to the famous Ravivari or Gujri Bazaar, located at another ACW venue, the Sabarmati Riverfront, to experience this weekly flea market started by Sultan Ahmad Shah in 1414. At the Ravivari market | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement The narrow, cramped market, which seems to stretch on forever, boasts an impressive litany of items, set under tarpaulins and bright umbrellas. Think Calvin Klein underwear with stars-and-stripes prints, rows of denim jackets, bright tie-and-dye dupattas, cast-iron kadais, vintage photographs, soft furnishings and more. Though not for the faint-hearted — I spend over an hour dodging autos, bikes, garbage and human beings — the payoff is worth it, I think, when I finally emerge, red-faced and sweating, my bag crammed with varicoloured Bandhani dupattas, purchased at absurdly low prices: five for ₹500. An exhibit at the Conflictorium | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement 12 pm: Less than kilometres from the market, in the old part of the city, another ACW venue is the Conflictorium, a participatory museum that explores conflict. Housed inside a historic, two-story heritage bungalow, Gool Lodge, which was owned by Bachuben Nagarwala, the first trained beautician and hairstylist of Ahmedabad, it is now divided into several galleries, across which ‘Interruptions’, an audio-visual exhibition featuring the work of 17 artists, is being held until the end of the year.I spend 40 minutes at the museum before crossing the road to gaze at the beautiful ruins of Qutb-al-Din Shah’s Mosque, which stands at the northern end of the city near Delhi Gate, built by “Nizam, son of Hilal Sultani, on the 6th Ramadan, AH 853 (1449 AD) during the reign of Sultan Muhammad Shah II,” as a stone outside states.Then I hop into an auto and head to my final stop: Sabarmati Ashram.1.30 pm: Despite the oppressive afternoon heat of Ahmedabad, Sabarmati Ashram is visibly cooler, courtesy of the many trees and the river beside it, across which the many chrome-and-glass structures of modern Ahmedabad stand, a far cry from the century-old low building with its wood-slatted windows and pillars and red tiles, where Gandhi lived between 1918 and 1930. Outside this building, Hridaya Kunj, is a prayer on a stone tablet, while another one proclaims that it is from here that Gandhi launched his Dandi March.A few yards away, in the Nandini Guest House, the names of various well-known visitors to the ashram are displayed: Rabindranath Tagore, Reginald Reynolds, Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad and Horace Alexander. Inside, a row of perspectives garnered from various visitors to the ashram is featured, interspersed with photographs, news clips and artwork, including a deceptively simple watercolour on paper titled Gandhiji and Rabindranath Tagore by Jamini Roy, dated 1923. Gandhi’s house at his ashram at Ahmedabad, India | Photo Credit: Getty Images For a moment, I sit on a step watching visitors gaze at the riverfront, take photographs or canoodle under trees, reflecting on a world gone by, where a very different vision for my country was once forged.There is still the ride back to the hotel, bags to be packed and a flight to be caught, but as I walk back to the entrance, feeling the warm river breeze on my skin, I know that for all the disappointments and delays, this fleeting trip to Ahmedabad has been worth it, after all.The writer was in Ahmedabad at the invitation of the Ahmedabad Cultural Week team