Gujarat

It is 7:55pm and we are on the plane ready to fly home to our ancestral homes in Gujarat. It has been a wonderful experience learning about India and all the other parts that make it the whole as a family. But as we are discovering-the more we learn, we realise, the less we know and the more questions we have.  There is so much to the Indian history that we had no idea about. 

Having a some what bigger picture than what we arrived with, it will now be an experience to unravel my mums birth city and my dad’s birth village. This is where we will be going to the orphanage, I hopefully will get to visit schools and places that are important to my family, and on al bigger scale make connections with family, past and present Gujarati leaders from other places we will visit, like Ghandinagar. 

We will be arriving in what is known as a dry state. Not only here but in Kerela we found alcohol hard to buy. Here in Gujarat you need a permit and it has a ration of a certain number on bottles you can buy over a three week period. Also, the diet is vegetarian. Eating meat is not something that is common in the state of Gujarat. This is all linked to  having a healthier life style and belief systems within the religion of Hinduism - having a better mind and body. I am impressed that the government enforces restrictions with regards to alcohol. The age for drinking is 25 years.

I am very excited and wonder how our children will reflect on this experience when they get there. Here are a few family photos that we will always cherish.