A Heart Of Heritage

Sometime before I saw photographs of my friend Keyur Chauhan who went on heritage tour of Ahmedabad by walk. After seeing his photographs I felt really bad from inside because when I asked question to myself that what I know about history of Ahmedabad and heritage places around it then I got answer NOTHING, especially when Ahmedabad is my home town 😦 .  So I decided that I will explore as many heritage places as possible whenever I go to Ahmedabad.

Adalaj village, around 15-20 KM away from Ahmedabad.  Recently I visited this village because of Step Well located here, which is only step-well in India which is having two Well inside.   This step-well was built around 1498 by RUDA, wife of Veer Singh, Chief of Vaghela Pariwar. A step-well is also surrounded by one small beautiful garden.

Everyday many people visits this place which is really good thing. During this visit I met one foreigner lady.  She asked me one interesting question:  why these people are so busy while clicking of their portrait only? I looked at her; she is around 50 year’s old woman. I couldn’t able to give answer instantly because I knew why she is asking this question (or might be I was constructing English statement in mind to reply 🙂  )

Then I asked: Where are you from?

She said:  USA

I said: Is USA having any such Step-Well?

She said: Yes, but not as beautiful.

I said:  So this is the answer of your question. She was surprised and said: What?

I said: Yes, its human nature, we always appreciate and wants thing in life which we don’t have.  We have been so busy while running behind our own unclear goal that we have almost forgotten what we have. Today these people are not appreciating as much as they supposed to be, but tomorrow when sand of future will cover these heritage places then these people might spend thousands of dollars to see Step-Well in USA.

As soon as I completed my statement, one school group came to see step-well and started having fun over there.  I couldn’t able to continue talk with that lady. I was just thinking I hope she will not go back to USA after my answer 🙂 .

I have intentionally selected this photograph to post on blog because seriously a heart of heritage places is really in full of darkness.  Sometime only ray of hope is coming from sun during day time, Archeology Survey of India (AIS) is doing fair job, but it’s not enough.  Especially awareness and importance of such places should be known by people.

Date: 1st May 2011