Walking the Dandi Path: Day 16 Thursday November 9 2017

Borbhata Bet - Sajod - Mangrol - 12 km / 19 miles

The morning plan is to drive across the Golden Bridge - there is no pedestrian path- then walk to Ankleshwar.  Again I’m pleased when Erico has another quick change of heart and we reroute down the bumpy roads of yesterday. I don’t think Tahir’s boss would be happy if he knew his van was taking these roads not just once but four times! Today we are successful in locating Borbhatha Bet where we hop out and take photos looking across the Narmada River towards Bharuch shrouded in a haze of pollution. Tahir is feeling more of a team after yesterday’s adventure and it’s fun to see his personality relax and become less formal. We part with him and begin our walk back towards the highway. The area is lush with the banana fields I had admired from the window of a bumpy car but I realize the area is not so isolated as I had thought when I see high school students in their tidy uniforms walking to a beautiful school. A tall chimney of a brick works attracts our attention but no one seems to be working there. We enter the grounds heading toward the piles of brick but suddenly a security guard approaches and tells us that photographs are forbidden and to leave the site. He isn’t rude, just firm, and I’m only surprised that this has not happened anywhere before. We have met with such open reception. After a few peaceful hours we are back walking the highway avoiding the trucks in unbearable heat. I’m cheered at the sight of schoolgirls waiting for their bus, their hair neatly tied in looped braids with ironed ribbons, gingham shirts under tan tunics. We are also bemused by all the people honking and waving to us as they pass by in their vehicles as this is a new phenomenon. While Erico checks his phone for messages he discovers he has received a copy of the video of our interview with the journalists in Jambusar. We now realize the television and newspapers have been carrying the story and we have gained a little celebrity status as the Dandi Pilgrims! We are completely shocked however when a young man pulls up behind us on a motorcycle bearing a bottle of cold water and a bowl of fresh pineapple slices. It is exactly what we are in need of and in no hope of finding. He is a handsome young man in a sunny yellow cotton shirt, black jeans with an orange belt and a generous warm smile. It is obvious he is excited to be providing this surprise for us and explains that he was riding in the opposite direction and spotted us walking in the heat. Once home he could not stop thinking about us and wondered what he could do and decided to bring us refreshments. “I knew you wouldn’t want anything spicy!” he tells us. Right you are!

Sajod feels deserted but that’s just fine after the busy highway. We seat ourselves on a bench in the shade, still marvelling at the morning miracle of pineapple and water. Just as we’re wondering where everyone is we are greeted by a voice in the window above our heads.  A man is leaning on the sill enquiring where we are from and where we are headed. We tilt our heads up and after a short exchange he invites us into his home and gives us a tour. A swing hangs in the living room and a television sits on a table tuned to a Bollywood movie but what I notice most is the cool relief of the tile floor on my bare feet. He begins the tour by taking us to his carport where he has a couple of cars carefully stored under tarps. We express some enthusiasm as this must be a hobby of passion for him as well as a display of considerable disposable wealth. He then takes us up a set of stairs to show us his daughter’s room. We’re escorted by his little grandson and little girl friend that look excited to explore what might possibly be an off-limits room. It’s a lovely space but what I keep observing in India is how free and happy the children seem to be and how their grandfathers play a significant role in their care. This is the Chauhan household where we are provided a generous lunch and meet mother, daughter Vandana, son, home from his morning farming, and daughter-in-law- then led to rest on the charpoy in the “relaxation room”. The son confides he prefers a charpoy to the mattress he and his wife now sleep on and I think to myself, ”Right.Stick with what works and is better for the environment.” After a rest we depart to wander the streets among herds of goats and cows and fields of sugarcane in search of the peepul tree and plaque that marks where Gandhi spoke.

As we continue our walk along the hot and busy highway another man on a motorcycle approaches us, a child straddled on the seat behind him. In a friendly manner he asks if we are headed for Mangrol. We reply yes and looking pleased, he turns around and zooms back from whence he came. Very strange! We carry on and soon we pass a pair of women sitting on the ground at the edge of the highway. Unconcerned by the traffic racing by they are quietly stripping the greenery off of cut branches others have brought them from the nearby fields. They each have a kind of hobo’s pack to transport these clippings but I don’t know if it is feed for livestock or more toothbrushes. Suddenly a little girl is scurrying towards us. She is cradling a baby goat in her arms while trying not to trip over a second kid and its mother keeping pace at her feet. We interrupt her and ask to take photos. She pauses, obliging us, but seems anxious until we’re shocked into realizing these are two newborns with their mother and she is delivering them to her own mother who we had just passed with the twigs. Mother goat is distressed, wanting only to clean and feed her infants. We move on feeling somewhat boorish. The road eventually becomes a quiet path again and at last we arrive in Mangrol, hot and sweaty and quite ready for Tahir to drive us to our night halt.  He is waiting for us by the van but he is not alone. The man from the second motorcycle is standing proud and next to him a row of children who, based on their resemblance to him, must be his own. They are holding bowls of rose petals and garlands of marigolds. He is the sarpanch, administrator of the village, and he places a garland over my head while everyone beams with pleasure. He is anxious to show us the newly built dharamsala and Tahir does take us there with him. I can appreciate how proud he must feel to have this facility in his village however we don’t stay long. The sun is low and we long to rest. Before returning to our hotel in Ankleshwar we promise we will meet him there in the morning.

Walking the Dandi Path: Day 17 Friday November 10 2017

As promised we begin our day returning to the Mangrol dharamsala, the sarpanch greeting us once more at this early hour.  We really don’t have much else to see there and the pressure is on to get moving in the cool hour of dawn. I think of Thomas Weber on his Walk and how he was expected to give speeches, often twice daily, as he was hosted by village hospitality. He lamented that he never had the opportunity to simply walk and reflect in solitude. We begin our walk down the quiet road and I feel calmed by the pale pink morning glories blooming along the border of the crop fields. We come to an intersection that has us wondering which direction to take. Approaching us on our right are five bearded men with close-cropped hair dressed in white robes. They have walking sticks and are carrying cloth shoulder bags and bedrolls strapped on their backs. It feels like a mirage, like an image long buried in my head coming to surface. They move like a cloud carried on a west wind and I cannot take my eyes off them. I’m wondering, is this what I want for myself? Or was I perhaps a mendicant at one time? Where are they going and where is it I am heading? They are Jain mendicants. As Erico photographs them he asks which road leads to Rayma. They pause and I’m struck by their direct, clear eyes, not sure if they are returning my gaze or looking beyond me. The one in front leading raises his hand pointing the way to Rayma then they continue walking their own path.

Mirage - Virginia Dixon, oil on canvas, 32” x28”

It is a lovely day and I feel free and blessed. We are in sugarcane territory and fieldworkers are cutting tall stalks with their machetes, lowering them to watch us as we pass by. I see a peepul tree with hearts and arrows and initials carved into its trunk. We arrive in the village called Rahid, greeted by a statue of the avatar Kalki mounted on his white horse. School children on their recess gather at the gate of the schoolyard and watch us like we are a friendly but foreign species. Next door, in an open barber’s booth, Erico decides on another haircut and steps into the chair. It begins with a flourish, the barber draping a bib around his neck festooned with Disney’s Cinderella and Snow White. This has Tahir and I amused and smiling while Erico demonstrates his progressive nature, comfortable with pink princesses. The barber sets to work with an electric razor shaving the back and sides. He switches to scissors and at this point the scene attracts other curious young men who jam into the booth along with Tahir to watch the performance. Tahir is chatty and full of laughter, enjoying having his boss being the centre of attention. The barber puts lotion on Erico’s face and beard, spritzes him with water before giving him a full facial and hair massage, rubbing him down vigorously with a towel to finish. When all is done the barber refuses payment. Erico, gleaming with cleanliness, has now noticed the school and its children so we enter the gate and seek a teacher for permission to photograph. It’s an inviting atmosphere filled with garden greenery, a poster of smiling Gandhi at the door. The children have assembled sitting cross-legged in rows in the exterior hallway and are singing songs. I can see they are excited but also want to show us their best behaviour. As they line up to enter the classrooms they fold their arms in front of their chests then march away single file.

We continue walking past fields of sugar cane under harvest and I hear birds singing. I locate them perched atop the spindly branches of a dead tree in the centre of a grove of leafy ones, the silhouette of the scene somehow feeling significant, like a neural network of a brain. Perhaps they are singing it back to life. Perhaps they are forecasting the beauty ahead for us in Rayma. Before we get there however we are searching for the place where Gandhi crossed the Kim River. We keep walking and walking only to have Tahir come fetch us in the van as we have walked 6.4 km (four miles) beyond Rayma without finding the crossing. Tahir has located a family to host us for our night halt and when we pull up to the house I feel we are in for a very artistic experience. A serpentine staircase leads to the front portico of a white plaster house, a circular window divided by 8 spokes like the wheel-of-life piercing the wall. As we enter, more light filters through a triangular sunroof. The white plaster walls are washed in a distressed ultramarine blue at ceiling height. An exposed spiral staircase curls to the second floor. Beneath it, light filtering in from a window framed in turquoise casts its colour onto the base of each step. A curved balcony projects over the living room, a ceiling fan slowly rotates. I feel I am inside a musical nautilus. We are invited to sit and rest, have tea and talk with the husband. He has books and photos to show Erico for this house, custom built and architecturally designed, is on the grounds of the former house where Gandhi had stayed. We eat dinner and are shown our rooms for the night. My own is beautiful, the walls the same distressed blue, a lace curtain hanging before the cupboard. I help my hostess make up a western style bed with red sheets beneath a painting of Krishna and Radha surrounded by a circle of gopis dancing under the moonlight. I will have sweet dreams tonight!

Walking the Dandi Path: Day 18 Saturday November 11 2017

Rayma - Crossing the River Kim - Bhatgam - 16 km / 10 miles

In the morning Tahir and I are served the best ginger chai tea in all of India and the world! Tahir is teasing me into drinking mine India-style, pouring it into the saucer to cool before sipping. I’m not sure why but he finds my technique very funny and anyway I prefer my tea piping hot.  We are to visit the neighbours across the road as they have a family member in his nineties who was a child when Gandhi passed through during the Salt March. It is another welcoming household and Erico sets the elderly man in a shaft of sunbeam and takes his photograph. He is dressed head to toe in white khadi and when he sits, he folds his legs around himself.  Upon departure from my “nautilus house” our hostess places tilak on our foreheads and I in turn give her a peacock feather. Erico must be glad. I’ve been collecting the long feathers as I find them, saving them in the rear of the van where they’ve been tickling the back of his neck. Tahir drives us to the highway to continue our search for the river crossing. Eventually some locals direct us to a path running down between two fields. Watching for snakes the three of us walk single file, the air filled with the sound of water irrigation pumps tick-tick-ticking. Every time I hear these pumps I think of Gandhi’s pocket watch and his penchant for strict time keeping, a practice I have yet to master. We reach the river and although it’s not wide it is too deep and too swift to traverse on foot. We cancel that plan and head back to the highway to renew our walk, crossing the river by bridge. A dog has joined us, trotting ahead and looking back every now and then to check if we’re still coming. Approaching another brickwork factory, we wander in to see what’s going on. The dog scurries up a pile of bricks to keep watch as we explore what feels like an archeological dig site. Some buses are parked nearby for the transportation of workers to the site. It’s not busy but no one tells us to leave. Trenches have been dug with hoes and wheelbarrows creating mounded rows of clay ready to be formed into bricks. As the pit deepens, the sides are reinforced with brick which then form the walls of the kiln, its roof the raw clay at ground level. Pierced with arched doorways the surplus bricks are placed inside for firing. A couple is in the trench hand pressing clay into molds then laying them in precise rows. They see us but stay focused on their task. Freestanding piles of baked bricks stand guard with the monumentality of Chinese terracotta warriors. A clay chimney towers above this scene of complete efficiency, nothing wasted, just transformed through ingenuity and manual labour.

We Are Of The Same Clay - Virginia Dixon, oil on canvas, 32”x28”

Our dog has wandered off and we carry on without him down the uninhabited rural road. We’re hot, hungry and thirsty having had no breakfast. The prospect for food looks slim. Tahir has been keeping a close watch on us today, stopping the van every 3 or 4 km ahead until we are in sight so as not to lose our way again. He’s heard there is a food stop at an intersection a few km on but we’re a little skeptical about what it will provide in the way of meals.The crossroad turns out to be a highway and right at the intersection is a dhaba, an outdoor kitchen with several picnic tables in the shade of trees! We have not seen anything like this as yet and it feels like another miracle. We order an assortment of freshly prepared dishes and sit down to feast and rest from the mid-day heat. Tahir and I have bonded over our mutual love of tea and today is proving bountiful. After eating, Erico and Tahir pull out their phones and begin the communications. I have a phone but try to avoid communicating while I’m travelling. This is evidence of the generation gap among us as I remember when travel meant sharing stories and photos on return. Today I’m a little irritated by it in part because of the added presence of the car. More likely I’m just hungry! We linger at the table because of the heat and because the morning walk was quite arduous.

Once Erico and I set off along the road heading south of the intersection everything changes. The road winds languorously through a tunnel-like canopy of trees bordered by channels of green water blooming with wild iris. Not a car to be seen or heard, the air cool and green. We fall under its spell, walking in wonder and silence, not wanting to burst the dream with any disturbance. When we do finally speak it is to express the same feeling of being borne and reborn.

We come to another school. The young children are boisterous and happy for this unusual event of visiting foreigners and we line up for photos together. I continue to be impressed by the beauty, energy and apparent health of the children I see in Gujarat. The road continues along its quiet way, dogs and children our main companions, little girls carrying pots to fill at the local well, older boys posing for photographs in the studied social media stance, hairstyles carefully coiffed and glistening.

We pass another brickwork and more ochre coloured dogs and I’m pleased with the overall unity, feeling complete and happy.

Tahir pulls up and announces he found another “very fine house” for our night halt in Bhatgam. My mind is picturing the previous night’s quiet elegance but we are brought to a large modern semi-detached home housing the families of handsome twin brothers; their wives and four young children and an aged grandmother. A third brother and several neighbours join in welcoming us. I get an uncomfortable notion the husbands might have accepted we foreigners without the support of their wives, who seem cooler than other women we’ve met. Perhaps they don’t really want two dusty pilgrims staying the night now that they have a modern home to enjoy. Perhaps I’m completely misreading them and they feel shy! There is however a bit of irony in my unease at their opulence as Gandhi met with excessive wealth and indulgences on this day in his Walk and gave a severe scolding to both himself and his pilgrims for succumbing to the pampering they received. The elderly toothless grandmother is very elegantly dressed: a pink cotton sari, her hair styled, bejewelled with gold bangles, wedding band and long beaded necklace strands. She sits cross-legged on a swing with her third son keeping close watch beside her, holding her hand lovingly. I engage with the little girl cousins who are playing a version of hockey with a soccer ball and paddles in the spacious open-concept layout of the home. I’m shown up to my room and decide to stay put as I’m finding the household very loud and chaotic after the peaceful walking. Before long the excited children have found me and want to show me their room and toys. As we explore their quarters the power goes off and we’re left in pitch dark. One of the fathers brings me a head lamp and I return to my room to read until things get resolved- although power outages might be the norm here. When we’re called to dinner the three of us are placed at the dining table while the wives and children sit in a circle on the kitchen floor eating their meal Indian-style- with especially loud voices! The twin brothers are absent but in the evening Erico joins them outdoors for a game of soccer.

Walking the Dandi Path: Day 19 Sunday November 12 2017

Bhatgam - Delad - 16 km /10 miles

I wake at 5am, the sound of chanting, bells and drums coming through a loudspeaker from a nearby temple. It soothes me and centres me and prepares me for a new day. I find the recorder on my phone and capture a bite of the sound. We are served a morning tea and a bowl of cereal. Erico is cheerful but Tahir is tired. The brothers are not evident this morning and only one of the wives but the children are sweet, waving peace signs at us from the front verandah as we prepare to depart. I’m grateful for their hospitality. I wish them well.

Off we go walking passing one of the least attractive busts of Gandhi yet. Someone has draped a fresh hank of cotton around his neck but another has painted his teeth and eyes white giving him a freakish expression behind his gold painted glasses. We pass the milestone marking 300km distance from Ahmedabad, a mere 100km yet to walk to reach the sea! We arrive in an attractive village called Gola with a large neem tree in the public square. Paved with interlocking bricks there is no litter to be seen anywhere and it feels more like Italy than India. We sit to enjoy a little shade and find ourselves being treated to yet another tea, sipping it while the villagers stand a little apart from us watching shyly and politely, informing us this was where Gandhi had spoken. We don’t tarry however, continuing our way past fields of sugarcane under harvest. I make a casual observation to Erico about seeing an infant attended by a toddler in the field while the mother and co-workers cut cane. Erico decides to enter the field for photos and asks me to come along but something feels fraught in this scenario. We climb over the ditch and work our way through the thick cane stalks. Our approach alarms the toddler and sets the baby crying. Their mother rushes to check on them but balks at seeing foreigners. Soon father is dashing out from another field having heard of the disturbance. Erico suddenly realizes the situation from their perspective and apologizes and everyone calms down and no harm is done. As we straggle back to the road I can see how much the episode has upset him as well. “I don’t usually photograph the children,” he tells me and I feel bad for all of us. It’s a lesson to remember; we are guests but we have boundaries to respect.

The walking today is on a highway heavy with vehicular traffic with no shoulder for walking. I have to be careful I don’t lose my balance on rubble underfoot because there isn’t much room for error. The rural sights are beautiful however with plentiful water buffalo. One water buffalo farm- or perhaps a migrant camp of some kind –is particularly picturesque as the women are dressed in tribal costume wearing heavy silver bangles around their ankles and wide bone bangles and rings on their wrists and in their ears and nose. Erico stops to photograph them and they welcome us, enjoying the pleasure of being seen, allowing them some brief glamour away from sweeping out soiled straw in the buffalo and goat pens.

We walk and the scene continues with the highway on our left and sugarcane fields on the right only now the day’s harvested cane is being loaded onto the bull carts. The driver stands straddled on the piled up cane holding the reins in his hands and it is quite a balancing act, bringing to my mind The Log Drivers Waltz! The field is below road level and the bulls have to be coaxed by the workers into hauling the load up the steep bank without losing the load – or the driver. As I stand and watch mesmerized one of the men hands me a stick of sugarcane. I’m like a kid at the rodeo now eating cotton candy. The parade passes by thunderously. One after another they enter the highway and head off beneath the gateway announcing Delad.

When the drive's nearly over I like to go down
And watch all the lads as they work on the river
I know that come evening they'll be in the town
And we all like to waltz with the log driver*

*verse 2, The Log Drivers Waltz

Walking the Dandi Path: Day 20 Monday November 13 2017

Surat- Day of Silence

Rest and silence - but not out the window! I watch the kite flyers on the rooftops across the road and listen to the mantra chants coming from the temple below. Erico fasts.

Walking the Dandi Path: Day 21 Tuesday November 14 2017

Delad - Surat - 17.7 km / 11 miles

I’m up at 5:30 happy and energized for today’s Walk. Tahir will drive us back to Delad where we left off but the car is blocked in the hotel drive and we’re stalled waiting for the problem to clear. These inconveniences seem magnified when the cooler walking hours are so fleeting. The drive feels long as I picture our day’s walk in reverse but in fact it’s only 17km. I just can’t wait to be back outside! Tahir deposits us at the Gandhi statue and I feel disappointed yet again. After having read much on the ancient Indian techniques involved in creating and casting bronze sculptures, including the precise symbolic interior and exterior proportions, I wonder at the degradation but such is traditional craft everywhere. It’s the start of a new day in Delad, our fourth and final week. A man is milking his long-horned cow, her calf patiently waits its turn to nurse. Families of sugarcane labourers are preparing for their workday, sitting in their carts with a child or two, a pair of bulls with brightly painted horns at the rein, sometimes one more tied at the rear. One couple waits while their two little sons play happily on a broken seesaw in the park. I take their photo and show the image to mother and she beams. Because we have an early start the traffic is still light but I am sensitive to the noise today. My ears are throbbing from the clamour of Surat outside my hotel room.  It’s not an interesting walk for the longest time until we approach the bridge on Amroli Road to cross the Tapti River back into Surat. Two donkeys on the flats below on the river bank. They are fighting over who will romance the white jenny standing quietly nearby but then both run off chasing each other, evoking a wild sense of freedom in contrast to the commuting people above. The air has remained cooler today but is overcast with pollution, which also explains the headache I have developed. As we enter Surat the noise of the textile factories is deafening. Some have their windows open and we peer inside taking photos of the machines and rolls of fabric. I notice a man watching us closely from a window several floors up and wonder if he thinks we are activists spying on the working conditions in the textile industry. In this case there don’t seem to be many workers, just automated machines. I think of Gandhi’s efforts to preserve the local spinning industry to sustain an economy in the villages across India. I am already pining for some village peacefulness. We pass all kinds of families living at the side of the road where babies play in the thick dust, grandmother rocks an infant in a cloth hammock and mother cooks over a smoking kerosene stove. No one is complaining, just getting on with living and offering a welcoming smile to two foreigners passing through. We climb up the bank to look at the view from the train tracks and examine the expansive slum. A mixed gathering of dwellers quickly assembles, excited for their celebrity as Erico starts taking photos,. It seems everyone is cheerful despite the stress of their living conditions; smiling and calling out their hellos and welcome to Gujarat! Again I wonder how this attitude endures seemingly harmoniously and marvel at their physical beauty. Erico wants to show me a mural he found in the Surat railway station yesterday across from our hotel. It’s located on a pedestrian ramp and is a colourful interpretation of Gandhi leading the March to Dandi, or perhaps Swaraj. As  I video record it on my phone he stands at a busy intersection in the station taking photos of the commuters rushing by. Upstairs on the platform I see crowds of patient peoples awaiting the various arrivals and departures of trains, sitting on their baggage dressed in an array of costumes. It’s very busy yet strangely orderly. We arrive back at the hotel around 4:30 and Erico calls Tahir to come join us in a tuk-tuk ride to the Tapti Bridge. I am excited because I’m usually in my hotel room once the night halt has been reached and Tahir is excited to be joining us without the responsibility of driving. It’s a real adventure for the three amigos. The driver takes us to the Tapti bridge and waits while we cross it on the footpath. At this hour it is particularly busy with the regular pedestrian commuters heading home after their workday. They seem oblivious to the gaping holes in the riveted metal planks at their feet whereas I peer through to the river streaming far below. Something about the rivers continues to elate me and I feel giddy with happiness and throw away any fear of heights and holes.  Besides, Tahir is shielding me from an intoxicated man staggering behind us., vying for attention. It’s a long crossing but we reach the other side stopping to take photos of each other and watch the trains pass before turning back to do it all in reverse.

Our driver is waiting patiently and Erico is now searching for a cremation ghat that he thinks might be nearby. We hop in the vehicle again and zoom off in search of it. Our driver drops us near a temple where we are given permission to enter once we remove our shoes. Passing through a room around a large brass bell we descend a steep staircase to the water and follow the shoreline. Families live here as on the streets. They are busy washing themselves, doing their laundry, lighting fires for cooking., the usual domestic routine. Climbing another steep set of stairs we encounter two priests dressed in white. Silently and solemnly they descend the stairs single file, the first transporting a raised copper bowl filled with marigolds and rose petals. They enter the filthy water to mid-thigh and offer the flowers to the river. Immediately two children wade in and begin sifting through the petals in search of anything to salvage. The sun is setting. We must hurry as we retrace our steps to the tuk-tuk and race home in the fading light.

Amid clamour and chanting

Of mills and monks

I tiptoe the Tapti bridge

Walking the Dandi Path: Day 22 Wednesday November 15 2017

Surat - Dindoli - Vanz - 19 km / 12 miles

Erico and I meet at 7:30 for breakfast in the dining room of the Grand Pragati Hotel before departing on our walk to Vanz. This is going to involve a very long walk crossing the city of Surat with all of its traffic, noise, pollution and bustle. The industry is primarily textile and we’re approached by men trying to lure us in for the business of selling us wholesale saris. Well, I’d love to have an array of saris but it’s not possible today! The walking is more anonymous than usual but still very friendly considering the density, noise and congestion. We cross a bridge and below us is a massive slum. Again I wonder whether life in the village is worth leaving for this environment but since Surat had a pneumonic plague outbreak in 1994 it has grown to be a leader in public health initiatives and is one of the cleanest cities in India. And it seems innovation is everywhere when it comes to earning a living. Barbers hang their mirror on a public wall, put out a chair and they’re in business for the day. The air smells of kerosene as families set about cooking breakfast. People request selfies with us. Everything flows but it is intense and loud and the traffic a concern. After several hours we get through and past it and feed onto a concrete road where it becomes far easier to walk and look about. Suddenly I hear a loud crack and a woman’s voice calling out. It comes from a couple walking down a residential street, the man semi-naked and self-flagellating, his wife beating loudly on a drum, calling to people in their homes. In my mind I conclude he is taking on the sins of others in exchange for money but I have yet to learn if this is the true purpose of the scene.

We arrive in Dindoli where I recall reading about a house related to Gandhi’s visit. The owner of a juice bar, busy washing the floor before opening for the day, invites us to sit and rest while Erico pulls out Weber’s book. Reading there is a house in Dindoli where Gandhi stayed he asks around if anyone knows of its location. The shopkeeper of a children’s clothing store is familiar with it and gets on his phone for directions then along with his friend from Jaipur takes us there in his car. It’s a lovely two-storey house with beautiful wood doors and columns along the front verandah. The present owner uses it for storage but it also contains photos and Gandhi memorabilia belonging to the previous owner. It is very dark inside. Erico stacks a pile of books on a table and parks the camera up top, opens the lens wide and captures the scene, the only photograph I saw him stage this way. His eye is so quick and his sensitivity to light and composition masterful. The men drive us back, exchanging social media numbers before parting and on we walk- and walk - and the day grows hotter- and hotter. The landscape has opened up but I admit it isn’t holding my attention today because the noise and pollution crossing Surat have hampered my senses. Food would help. Walking towards Vanz, women are selling coconuts from their roadside stands. I select one from a pile stacked tall before a young mother. She is seated on a stool, gently pulling on a rope attached to a hammock containing a young baby. He sits up and watches me with big eyes, all the bigger for the black eyeliner. With one swoop of a long blade, his mother adroitly slashes the top off my coconut while continuing to rock the hammock with her other hand. Its water provides me with enough fuel to keep going until we meet up with Tahir in Vanz. He is waiting in the van with a hotel friend and we climb in. Erico suddenly announces he has a craving for a “fine Western lunch”. He is hungry because he fasted through the 24-hour Monday rest day. Tahir drives us to a TGB Hotel restaurant on the other side of Surat and the city is so alarmingly different from the centre where we had been staying. I’d forgotten what affluent modern life looks like. This is a very luxurious hotel and restaurant and I’m overwhelmed arriving in my dusty pilgrim’s garb. I order a roast chicken dish but it is almost impossible to consume after weeks of eating lightly.

When we return to our hotel Tahir mentions that His Boss wants us to pay him a portion of our fare. Because we have not been handling money for the past month I had basically forgotten it existed. I realize I must start building up a cash reserve as there are daily and weekly limits to withdrawals. I’m ready to return to my room in Surat after one of the most strenuous days of walking. My head aches. I stuff earplugs in my ears to dull the noise of traffic and chanting monks outside my window, quite ready to leave Surat at 6am next morning.

Walking the Dandi Path: Day 23 Thursday November 16 2017

Vanz - Navsari - 21 km / 13 miles

It is early when we depart Surat for Vanz with Tahir driving.  First I step into an ATM booth to begin withdrawing cash for expenses. The paper bills fall into my hands and seem foreign in more ways than currency, triggering a recall of the world at large. Never mind, I love the streets in the morning. I love the sense of beginnings. People are about but it is calm and the air fresh. Arriving in Vanz we drop by the newly opened dharamsala then walk west to the locate the site of the original dharamsala where the Marchers had slept, next to the beautiful Jain temple. In 1930 there were many Jain families in Vanz but not so now and the temple is locked, only open when a service is taking place. But the peepul tree still lives and we walk into the field where it is standing in celebration of the sunrise, its trunk encased in a square concrete seating platform. As the three of us gather round taking photos of it (trees are always too tall!) we are joined by a neighbourhood man, a towel casually wrapped around his waist as if just stepping out the shower. A young woman wanders over from the adjacent house and speaks to us in fluent English. She is wearing the outfit any college-age woman would be wearing back home - a t-shirt and pajama bottoms – and we learn she is home visiting from her studies in Melbourne, about to be married and move to Boston. She offers to bring us tea and brings out two large mugs. Tahir is bewildered by the size of it - this young woman has indeed been Westernized in her tea habits! Wandering around the village I see a Royal Enfield motorcycle parked in a driveway and I nudge Tahir to sit on the bike for a photo op. He’s quite happy to oblige but its owner is watching us closely from a window. Erico and I head down the road, Tahir checking on our path from the van. It is peculiar and convenient that neither Erico nor I have had to deal with bathroom emergencies on the walk.  Our food intake has been minimal and I suppose all the water we drink just evaporates. This morning things are different as a result of having indulged in our big lunch yesterday. As we get on the road from Vanz I suddenly realize the need to use the facilities - only we are not in an area where I can disappear into a grove of trees nor can I squat on the edge of the road to do my business as the local children do. Fortunately Erico is hit with the same call of nature and he brings this to the attention of Tahir. We are walking by a factory of some sort. It is closed but the caretaker is on site and Tahir gains us access to the washrooms where we are relieved in western style comfort. If you embark on a pilgrimage, eat sparingly! Back on the highway, sharing the road with cattle, we are directed to keep going but not to follow the Dandi Path arrow as there is no bridge to cross the river in that direction. We keep to the highway a very long distance - and it is not particularly scenic or pleasant. Luxury suburban housing seems to be under development in these parts and just as Erico makes a humorous comment about buying one of the mansions in “Paradise Dreams”, a large brown snake slithers across the road. This one feels serious, not like the slim green vine snakes spotted now and again. We keep walking when it suddenly occurs to me we were missing passing through Dhaman where I recall reading there is a significant Gandhi site. I mention Dhaman to Erico and he calls Tahir. It is so odd how Tahir appears over the horizon when we need him lately. He drives us back several kms and we enter a road passing through a small and friendly Muslim village where they assure us there is no bridge in that direction to cross the Mendhola River. A young teen hops in the van beside Tahir and we continue the drive to the river anyway, just to look at it. He’s right of course, we cannot cross, but it’s another pleasing encounter and when we return him to his home he brings us bottles of water for the road. We drive back along the highway again until we locate the sign- in Gujarati script - pointing the way to Dhaman. Small wonder we had walked right by it earlier! We drive in and discover Gandhi’s rest site, a beautiful sight, a newly built library at the time of Gandhi’s visit and now the post-office. The wall is covered in a faded blue mural depicting the March and a magnificent bust of Gandhi sits beneath a canopy. It has been a very hot day with many surplus kms walked in the wrong direction and facing the Gandhi bust, with its curly twists of cotton and strands of faded marigolds encircled around his neck, has me feeling renewed in spirit. Suddenly the postmaster arrives (word spreads fast in India) and I’m thrilled because I have two letters to mail to friends back home on stationery from the Sabarmati ashram. The postmaster weighs and stamps and cancels the envelopes and off they go! We are invited by an older man to come for tea at his home just down the road. It’s quite the elegant home with tall, ornate columns on its exterior creating a soaring open living room. We sit in a row on the sofa and the daughter-in-law brings us water and tea and a plate of home baked cookies. Trying one, it tastes somewhat like pie crust, delicious, and soon Erico and I have consumed the plateful as we are famished. The son shows us a Gujarati book published in 1969 on The Salt March complete with photos . It contains the name of a local who had met and worked with Gandhi in Durban, South Africa and later we are introduced to his 79 yr old son next door.

As it is still too hot to start walking the 11km to Navsari we climb in the van, park in the shade of a tree and take a nap until 3:30. The walking continues through very beautiful countryside, clean and sparkling foliage, fresh air, lots of water, young sugar cane, bananas and coconut palms.  A single file line of slender older women walking home from a day’s work approaches and Erico photographs them as they smile shyly. He offers them a package of his biscuits and they laugh and accept. The road then turns into highway again making it busier as we walk into Navsari , first crossing a bridge over the Purna River. Crows perched on the rail call out a welcome while herds of cattle and goats graze on the banks below. Schoolgirls in classic gingham uniform and braided looped hair stroll home through scattered chickens and roosters. Suddenly we’re hit with large billboards advertising ornate wedding wear, so invasive when one has been away from it, just as money has grown strange.  

Walking the Dandi Path: Day 24 Friday November 17 2017

Navsari to Matwad

I meet Erico for breakfast in the dining room but for the first time on this pilgrimage I am tired at the start of the day. We had walked over 20 km yesterday and I ate just one meal of soup and sandwich with a pot of masala tea that only kept me from sleeping. Erico seems quieter also. As we head out the door of the Royal Hotel to begin our walk we ask staff for the directions to the Dandi Path. This initiates a very lively discussion between two of them and Tahir. Erico and I watch, baffled by the evident complexity of it all. They conclude we need a motorcycle escort. The two young men disappear and return fully decked out in helmet and scarf gear - only to go straight!! We part with Tahir and begin our stroll through the awakening Navsari.  A striding Gandhi statue stands at a roundabout- an animated Gandhi. It perks me up to climb the metal staircase and look into his smiling eyes. Yes, Gandhiji, we are getting close! We continue walking past the school children, past the barbers, past the bike repair persons setting up and dusting off their equipment to begin the day’s business. Colourful vegetables arriving fresh from the farms are laid out for sale. It’s a pretty city with a mix of the traditional and newish (1969) with the older holding up better. People are courteous but we don’t have as many personal exchanges as in the villages. We come to a second roundabout where another striding Gandhi is now looking thinner and older. Yes, Gandhiji, we are tired also today. it is a long march to the sea. We circle past him and continue walking, the road more open now as it departs the town centre. The blister on my heel is sore today and makes walking uneven. We pass large houses, newer and showier places with residents out walking large pet dogs on leash. We keep going, another vine snake slithers across the road. Eventually we wonder why we haven’t seen the familiar Dandi Path milestones and stop to check the google map. We discover we had taken another wrong turn after the second Gandhi statue, about 5km back! Yes, we must be weary to keep losing our way. Always resourceful, Erico quickly hails down a vehicle– a children’s school van. The driver stops and drives us back where we can correct our path with still another 8 or 10km left to reach Matwad. It doesn’t feel possible but we move ahead. Erico pauses to photograph a stooped old woman carrying a towering load of sticks on her head, her steps steady with life practice. Shortly after a man on a motorcycle stops and informs us the woman is 95 yrs old. I mine my own strength and continue walking this day’s road that is so beautiful. Old burly neem trees, trunks painted red and white, reach high into the sky, their twisting limbs arching across the road, casting us in shade. I try to ignore the litter in the ditches. We walk and walk, our energy reserve low. Erico wants to arrive in Matwad in time to return to Navsari by car with Tahir by 1pm. He has asked Tahir to arrange for him to attend and photograph the Friday prayer service in the mosque. I won’t be joining them because women are not permitted. We still have another 2km to reach Matwad when Tahir appears. We decide to go with him and start from this point tomorrow morning as we had walked those extra kms in the wrong direction. Erico and Tahir race to the mosque. I eat and read Basho in my room at the Royal Hotel and visit another ATM, all the while wondering about tomorrow’s arrival to Dandi Beach.

Walking the Dandi Path: Day 25 Saturday November 18 2017

Matwad - Dandi Beach -

“Who knows the Salt and its solution, knows the hidden secret of the Ancient Sages.”

It is almost precisely one year to the day when, on November 22, 2016, I was awakened to Gandhi upon seeing the photograph of him grasping a handful of salt.

I dress in white as I did on Day One of this Walk. It’s a quiet, dewy morning and I feel well rested but also a little anxious. I’m not sure that I’m ready for the Walk to reach its geographical destination. I’m under its spell and I don’t want to wake up unless something deep within myself has been truly altered by the experience. I may not have a great epiphany today. Then what will I carry with me when I return home?

 We begin with the remaining miles from yesterday and the road continues to be just as beautiful, lined with shade trees, greenery and feathery grasses, the unfortunate litter in the ditches. Suddenly I notice a star-shaped silhouette suspended midair between the fence line and low hanging branches. Its size doesn’t seem possible and I approach it for a closer look, confirming it is indeed a spider, a golden orb spider, the anaconda of arachnids! She’s not singular. I see several patiently spread-eagled at the centre of their giant webs. I see charkhas, the manual spinning wheels on which Gandhi and his Satyagrahis spun their daily quota of cotton. As we get closer to the sea the landscape changes, the shrubs now brittle in the salty soil. Another dog joins in, whiter than the previous dogs that have escorted us, bleached by the sea air. Sweet Tahir has never seen the sea and is especially animated today, tagging behind in the van, giddy, offering to drive us, wanting to get there sooner, seemingly unaware of the solemnity these contemplative, closing miles mean to us. I want to slow my steps, give myself time to witness and recall, stall the arrival. I have thought of the Satyagrahis daily, imagined the grueling conditions of their March in comparison to the ease of mine. This morning their presence is palpable. Satyagraha, truth-force building strength over the course of the March, received a vital tempering when it met with the sea.

We approach the entrance to the beach at 11:30. Tahir parks the van, snack vendors stand in wait at their stalls but there are no customers. All is quiet. A sign on the fence instructs visitors to remove their shoes, not to litter. A steep staircase leads down to the beach, transporting me back to the staircase at the Sabarmati ashram, and I sit to untie my shoelaces. I look up, taking in my first impression of the beach. It is vast, the tide low, the light flat on the dark silty sand, the water listless. It seems sapped of its force and I wonder if there is anything left there for my own temperance.

Is this the finish line? Where is the drama, the picturesque, the proof?

Do I feel letdown? Am I disappointed?

No. The very ordinariness of the place is what makes it more meaningful. I recognize my aspiration to be here and the fact that I am.

In 1930, the police had been instructed to destroy the salt flats on Dandi Beach, mixing the salt into the mud prior to Gandhi’s arrival on April 6. This being November, the days are not sufficiently hot to evaporate the tidal flats where salt crystals form. There are fine patches of white film on the sand that could be salt or perhaps just sea foam. I stoop and grasp a handful.

Gandhi chose salt as the objective for the Satyagraha because salt was vital to each and every Indian, rich and poor, regardless of religion. It was the common symbol for the oppression India endured under British Colonialism. Britain held a monopoly over the collection and manufacturing of salt and charged a tax on its sale through the British Salt Act . Salt was the political symbol for liberation (self-government) but salt also has social and spiritual connotations- fidelity, communal solidarity, preservation, truthfulness. Truth was the liberator of man both politically and spiritually, hence Satyagraha, translated as Truth-force or Soul-force. It was in seeking the more concealed meanings of salt that led me to the photograph of Gandhi. As I walk to to the sea I am contemplating the alchemical salt, the salt “that arises from the purest sources, the sun and the sea” and Soul-force, that which tempers the mind for the perfection of the body of humankind. Gandhi liked to say, “The body should be controlled by the mind and the mind by the soul.”

The beach is barely populated but we walk together towards the waterline. I switch on the recorder on my phone to capture the sounds of our voices, our breathing, then simply the steady pace of six bare feet crossing the sand.

The sea is not going to meet me half way.

Wading in I feel the water seeping up the hem of my white cotton robe.

I toss the handful of salty grains into the Arabian Sea, sealing my pact between Gandhi’s Message and my Life.

photo credit: Erico Hiller

Thanks to my friends Greg Polk and Himanshu Dube

for their support and for sharing their invaluable research on the Dandi Path today.

visit: https://retracinggandhisaltmarch.com