Ashaval or Karnavati?

I'm beginning to love my elective. Obviously, there's this wee bit of regret that I won't be walking around. But, nevermind. I'll do the walking around when I'm back in Ahmedabad. The reason I'm loving it is, you know history is my favourite and the elective pretty much is history. history from many parallel perspectives that I wouldn't have learnt otherwise. I didn't know Gandhiji was a shy man who couldn't talk in public or that he had to pay back the Rs. 7 his first client paid him because he lost the case miserably.

I didn't know that there are no proper records stating that Ahmedabad was once called Karnavati or why Ahmedabad as a Tagore hall. Rabindranath Tagore lived in Ahmedabad for 6 months with Surendranath Tagore, his brother who was the Commissioner of Ahmedabad to learn English literature. Ahmedabad as a very progressive city. It was one of the first cities to come up with women's schools. Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi met at a literary convention held at a women's college. Rabindranath was one of the first people to talk about reviving Indian architecture and built Shantiniketan to act as an example. I don't know how many books I'd have had to read to come across all these facts. I'm sure if I even would have. 

Another thing I learnt today while doing some extra reading is, a Gujarati king, Maharaja of Nawanagar, Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja, gave refuge to thousands of Polish kids who were orphaned during WW2.

Unfortunately, Shirin Mehta couldn't join today. Probably she'll join us next Tuesday.

I made plenty of notes in class today. And it's one of my favourite things to do. No no I'm not a book worm. I just like making a note of things that I think are worth remembering. History for example, is always worth remembering.