Word: ahmedabad
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...temper of a secularist age is penetrating even to Ahmedabad: some Jain priests have recently been seen to remove their masks in public, to eat and drink in restaurants and to use lamps without thought for the safety of moths. Last week things went even farther. One hundred of the boldest priests met and announced that, since intercession with the gods is industrial employment like any other, they had formed themselves into the Ahmedabad Jain Temple Priests Trade Union. From temple committees they demanded: an $8 minimum monthly wage, one day off a week, seven days' paid sick leave...
Between the gods and the faithful who worship at the 100 Jain* temples of Ahmedabad in western India stand 600-odd priests. Theirs is a hard and holy life; they say ritual prayers, guard temple treasures, abstain from smoking and drinking, sup before sundown (for lamps lure moths to destruction), and wear white cloth pads over their noses and mouths (lest their breathing destroy gnats or germs). Their wages never exceed $5 a month...
...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...