Borsad - Ras - Kankapura - 19km / 12 miles
The sun is a big hazy ball sitting on the horizon. I’m excited to get going because this day’s destination is the Mahi River and I’m curious to know if we’ll be crossing it on foot or by ferry. First we’re to rendezvous with a young man we’d met yesterday who wanted to show us some important sights in Borsad. We wait on a busy corner watching cows eat plastic bags until it is evident he is either late or not coming. These morning moments are precious because the heat rises quickly so we buy two bananas and a package of biscuits and head off towards Ras. I still seem to be in a fairy tale world as we pass a white wooden wedding chariot ornately carved with flowers painted in pinks and blues and yellows. This stretch of the walk is a quieter paved road lined with graceful acacia trees next to fields of tobacco. As we get further out of Borsad we pass by a clothesline strung with saris. A little girl is busy washing up the family breakfast dishes, rinsing the metal plates in a pot filled with water from a hose, her house built of brick formed from the sienna brown soil she is sitting on. We cross over a narrow gauge railway track (2’6”, that still operates a train once daily between Nadiad Junction and Bhadran.) Just across this track are suddenly reams of saris strung on lines and the long limbs of acacias reaching across the road. Sunlight filters through the diaphanous fabric in a luminous red. We marvel at the mystery and I later read that devotees of the goddess Chudail Maa make offerings of saris and a coconuts here with the prayer for prosperity – and a male child.
A grand white and orange archway announces the town of Ras with its immaculate streets, painted brick buildings, more picturesque overhanging balconies, historic wall murals and, what is ubiquitous in this region, a carved milking sign. Bright green parrots cling to the eaves. It is quiet at this hour but one man is out in the heat assembling a large nest of sticks to fire the newly made clay plates stacked nearby. The road becomes a paved path lively with goats and as we cross a little bridge over a canal we pause and watch the women below washing laundry on the steps while their children splash in the water. A family at work in a rice field gestures to us to wait. They approach, bend and touch our feet, a Hindu sign of respect. I didn’t know enough at that time to respond with a blessing wishing them a long life. A herd of goats trots by, tails wagging, a little boy keeping them in line with his long bamboo pole. The vegetation is getting drier and shrubbier and I sense we are closer to the water as I feel the moving air. A bus shelter next to an enormous banyan tree, its roots hanging straight in a dense curtain but trimmed several feet above ground level, marks our arrival at Kankapura. I’m so distracted by the unattractive bust of Gandhi atop an oversize plinth to notice Tahir waiting for us in the van. He is so smooth at making connections now and has found a lovely young local man named Hardik to escort us to our day halt. We arrive at a quiet, remote property where a mother is on her knees in front of her house smoothing mud, or perhaps dung, in a circular motion with her bare hands over the dry soil to keep the dust down. Her two young daughters lead us to a pair of charpoy placed in the shade of a tree. They bring us food and drink then we lie our hot and weary bones down for a rest. I can’t really settle because I’m only thinking about crossing the Mahi River. In 1930 it was such an epic night for Gandhi and the most arduous of the entire Salt March. I had read the account in Thomas Weber’s book On the Salt March and my imagination, like Weber’s also, is picturing “the horse”, the name of the tidal surge that races upstream filling the riverbed at full moon. Gandhi was to make the crossing around midnight to coincide with high tide. Crossing by boat would spare him a gruelling walk across several kilometers through the knee-high mud bed. Even with a boat he and his Marchers did have a distance to cover on foot before reaching the far shore. I still did not know if there was a ferry to get us across but we were only 2 days away from a full moon when I read the high tide can surge twenty to thirty feet above low tide. I have hopes to see the horse gallop upriver. An hour or two later Hardik escorts the three of us to the river accompanied with his canine Mad Dog, who we are warned is not friendly but certainly seems happy for the adventure. Now the breeze off the Gulf of Cambray is strong, the smell of the salty water teasing our destination. We work our way along a footpath over gouged out sandy hillocks and shrubby bush and at last arrive at the top of a cliff above the riverbed. It is empty! No water but for a thin stream near the shoreline. We climb down the steep bank to the beach and notice what looks like frost - our first glimpse of salt deposits in the sand! The riverbed is very wide and it is clear to me now there is no boat to ferry us across and neither will we be crossing this vast expanse of mud on foot. We will have to go with Tahir by car in the morning and cross at the bridge downriver. We are giddy with excitement from the fresh salty air and conviviality. As the day starts to fade we return to the yard and are led to a building that reveals itself to be the family’s place of worship and meditation. It is a spacious white room with a large yellow mural of the OM symbol framed in a yellow and pink border. I had hoped to return to the river to view it under the full moon light but we are locked in for the night at sunset, Tahir in the next room. Sleep soundly!
The Horse is in the Barn - Virginia Dixon, oil on canvas, 32”x28”