Word: ahmedabad
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...eyes less inspired than the Mahatma's never saw. Today, Patel is coldly pleased when his enemies call him "the Iron Dictator" and "Herr Vallabhbhai." Enemies and friends tell an anecdote of his criminal law days. He had just put his wife in a Bombay hospital, returned to Ahmedabad to argue a murder case. He was on his feet when a telegram arrived. He read that his wife had died, put the telegram into his pocket and went on with his argument as if he had never been interrupted...
...Patel was playing bridge in Ahmedabad's Gujerat Club when he first saw his fellow lawyer Gandhi, fresh from agitational triumphs in South Africa. At that time Patel dressed in fancy Western clothes and affected the manners of the most pukka sahib Briton. When his eyes fell upon Gandhi, Patel interrupted his game long enough to make a few scathing remarks. A year later he joined Gandhi's movement...
...when Patel had become the mayor of Ahmedabad, unofficial capital of Gujerati-speaking India, his extraordinary skill as an organizer showed itself for the first time during the great Gujerat floods. Everything broke down-transport, communications, all methods of distribution. The general Indian attitude used to be to regard such catastrophes as acts of God What little relief there was usually came from a British Government which took its good time to relieve distress. Patel initiated an unheard-of fund-raising drive for the relief of the flood victims. Supplies were moved into the flood areas by hundreds of volunteers...