Porbandar: Peace Country

Kirti Mandir, Gandhi’s birthplace

I recently visited the history yet prosaic Porbandar, the little seaside town in Gujarat, on the death anniversary of the Father of the Nation. After an 8-hour road trip from Ahmedabad, where my flight from Delhi landed, I reached the sleepy town around 6 pm. With my camera in hand, I trawled through its roads, not knowing that Mahatma Gandhi, its hero—and its only claim to fame—was as inconspicuous in the night as in the day. My guide and man Friday, Khan saab, showed me around town till suddenly at eight, the roads were completely deserted. “Small town people wrap the day early,” said he, matter-of-factly. He helped me check-in at Hotel Kuber, the only four-star in the entire Saurashtra region, and arranged for my dinner at the nearby circuit house.

Porbandar town by dawn

Awake at dawn the next day, I wanted to take a stroll in the beach, known as Chopati, and get a feel of the quiet town in the morning. Porbandar’s buildings, its architecture and broad roads seem to belong neither to the present nor to its historical past—it’s a town lost somewhere in between. The beach area reminded me of Mumbai’s Chowpatty sans the crowd and filth. Opposite to the beach, in a bay-like area, I could see the Porbandar port and the ships being docked. Khan saab told me the previous evening, that Porbandar in Gujarati means Old Port (Por stands for Old and Bandar, which is the short of Bandargah, stands for Port). Far across, somewhere near the horizon were the fishing boats, drawing closer, gradually. Fishermen returning from their night’s toil; some happy, others hopeful… on the bank, the town was slowly waking up. Around the port area thrives a large community of boatbuilders, most of whom are Muslims. There basti nothing more than a cluster of huts with the area stinking of dry-fish. I could see their boats tied to the anchor, swaying slowly in the tide; a welcome nod. Some boats and houses along the sea have inscriptions in Arabic. Up next was a visit to the famed Kirti Mandir and I changed into my cotton saree, brought especially for the purpose.

Kirti Mandir, the ancestral birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi, is a fascinating record of the great leader’s early life. The three-storey house breathes quietude, and as you climb the rickety stairs to the made-for-contemplation balcony and reading room, it’s easy to get a feel for how Gandhi’s root convictions were formed. The house has an excellent new museum and interpretive centre attached. These days, Gandhi’s maxims of non-violent change are more sorely needed than ever. The house is situated at one end of the town’s arterial road, near a square where a clean and well-maintained marble statue of his stands. Early in the morning, I saw a man stop his scooter, climb the statue and put a fresh garland around its neck. This, I later discovered, was a daily ritual—the only way the people of Porbandar are trying to keep Gandhi alive in his birthplace.

The locals react to the mention of Gandhi with pride and amusement. They smile if you ask for directions to Gandhi’s house. Other than that, they don’t really talk about Gandhi or anything related to Gandhi. Unlike Sabarmati, Gandhi’s ashram in Ahmedabad, which attracts tourists from all over the world, his home in Porbandar is a quiet, inconspicuous structure maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India. Gandhi is just a social memory in the land of his birth; there is no room for his own ideas about change in Porbandar’s present.