Tag Archives: surat

Biryani in Bangalore, Calicut, and Surat

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SO FAR – THAT is since January 1994, the very best biryani I have eaten was at Paragon in Calicut (Kerala) in 2006. It was a Moplah recipe – Arabic and Indian flavours combined most harmoniously. Last December, I enjoyed an almost as good biryani in the restaurant of the Sifat International Hotel in Surat (Gujarat).

Biryani at Bheema’s

When in Bangalore, where we find ourselves often, we like to visit Bheema’s restaurant on Church Street. It serves Andhra-style cuisine. I have never been disappointed with the biryani dishes served there. Although not as supremely superb as the two biryanis I have mentioned already, Bheema’s delicious biryanis are way above average – in my humble opinion.

Temple bells and a stepwell in Surat (Gujarat)

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NOBODY KNOWS WHEN the Bahucharaji stepwell was constructed. Legend has it that this well, located in Surat’s Vishal Nagar area, was built by Vanjara people, who came from outside Surat. These people used to visit the city, and set up camp there. This stepwell is said to have been dug by them to provide a supply of water.

The Vanjaras (Banjaras) are descendants of nomadic traders. Found in many parts of India, they used to have an important role in the economy of the Subcontinent. Wikipedia related that:
“… the Banjaras had a monopoly on the movement of salt prior to the arrival of the East India Company. More generally, they also traded in cattle, moving the beasts around the country’s bazaars, and they rented out their carts. Although some older sources have suggested that they did not use credit, Habib’s analysis of historic sources suggests that they did and that some were reliant on it.”

A Hindu goddess called Mataji appeared in the dream of a Vanjara and inspired the construction of the stepwell. After the vav (stepwell) was constructed, a temple was built within it. This is dedicated to Mataji.

The entrance to the stepwell is within a temple compound, in which footwear must be removed. We visited the place on a Sunday morning in December 2023. A steady stream of worshippers of all ages entered the stepwell’s ground level entrance. As they descended the steps towards the water in the bottom of the vav, they sounded the temple bells suspended above the staircase. Before reaching the water, the steps pass two shrines each containing effigies of Hindu deities. At one of them, a lady in a beautiful sari was involved in a lengthy puja conducted by a priest. She was accompanied by a large-ish group of people. I noticed that some of them were holding on to her sari.

We squeezed past the group and descended further into the vav until we reached a railing from which we had a clear view of the water far below us. Several tortoises were resting on the step closest to the water in the well.

After admiring the beautifully maintained vav, we left the temple compound. Outside it, we spotted some beautiful cockerels wandering around. A few days earlier in Surat when we were visiting another temple dedicated to Mataji, we saw cockerels and were told that the goddess favoured these creatures. Above the entrance to the Bahucharaji Stepwell compound, there is a bas-relief depicting Mataji astride a cockerel.

As for Mataji, I will not try to explain her because, for me trying to explain anything about Hinduism is nearly impossible. All I can say is that for Hindus, it seems that their beliefs and rituals are simply a part of the rhythm of daily life, rather than something compartmentalised as is often the case for Europeans.

An Albanian born in Italy and buried in Gujarat

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KHWAJA SAFAR SULEMANI (1500 – 1546) was born in either Otranto or Brindisi. He entered life as a Christian, named Cosa Zaffar in Italian. But later, after being converted to Islam, his first name became Khwaja Safar. I have written about him before because his most likely heritage interests me. He is most likely to have been the son of Catholic Albanian parents, who fled to Italy to escape the Ottomans who had invaded what is now Albania.

Khundhavan Khan Rojo – a detail

Khwaja was captured by an Ottoman general at sea when he was 15. The Sultan in Istanbul was impressed by him. To cut a long and complicated story short, he was put in charge of vessels to attack the ships of the Portuguese, who were trying to monopolise trade between India and Europe. The Ottomans carried goods from India to places in their Empire on the coasts of Egypt and the Arabian peninsula. From there, they were carried overland to Europe. Their competitors, the Portuguese, carried goods from India to Portugal via the Cape of Good Hope, thereby bypassing transit through lands held by the Ottomans. This proved very damaging to the economy of the Ottomans.

During the Ottoman attack on the Portuguese colony of Diu (on the south coast of Saurashtra – part of modern Gujarat state), Khwaja, whose fighting skills were highly regarded by his opponents, was killed by a cannon ball near, or in Diu. Interestingly, the Portuguese, with whom he joined forces briefly before turning against them, erected a monument in his honour. It stands in Diu, and I have seen it.

And that summarises all I knew until we visited the superb museum housed in the restored fort of Surat. There, I learned that Khwaja’s body was brought from Diu to Surat, where it was buried.

After his burial, a mausoleum was built over his grave. Probably established by his eldest son, Rajab, this lovely edifice, called the Khudhavand Khan Rojo (or Rauza), contains architectural features typical of 15th century mosques in Ahmedabad. It includes structural elements that were influenced by Hindu and Jain temples. By the way, Khwaja became known as ‘Khudhavand Khan’, the title he was given when Sultan Mahmud III made him Governor of Surat.

I entered the domed mausoleum, which contains six gravestones, all covered, as is usual, with coloured cloths. None of these is the grave of the man who was born of Albanian parents in the south of Italy. His body lies somewhere beneath the mausoleum.

As is often the case when I visit India, I come across completely unexpected things. Although I had known about Khwaja’s death in Diu, it was a delightful surprise to come across his final resting place in Surat – a city across the sea from Diu, but not too distant from it.

At first sight, it seems ironic that Khwaja’s Albanian parents fled from the Ottomans, yet their son became prominent in the Ottoman Empire. However, it is not so strange. Many Albanian boys (including Skanderbeg) were abducted, or taken as hostages, by the Ottomans, and later both served in the empire’s army, some of them becoming high officials.

Steps down to the water in the well in Surat city

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A STEPWELL OR ‘VAV’ (pronounced ‘vaav’) is a well in which users have to descend to the water within it by steps (staircases). The first one I ever saw is a disused vav in the ruins of Vijaynagar in Karnataka. During several trips to Gujarat, we have looked at many other vavs. Some have just one staircase leading to the water in the well, and others have more than one. Because many stepwells are at least partially, if not wholly, subterranean, the structures maintaining their iintegrity are sometimes quite complex – often a series of arches or layers of galleries. Therefore, the architecture of stepwells is varied and often fascinating.

On our second visit to Surat (in early December 2023), we spent a morning looking at two vavs: the Khammavati, and the larger Chatushmukhi. The former is near the railway station, and the latter is a couple of miles away, next to the Gopi Talav (lake).

The Khammavati is about 300 years old. It was established by Kansara a devotee of a goddess of stepwells. It is still used regularly, and is a little difficult to find. To reach it, you have to enter a small, rather rundown looking house. After removing your footwear, you walk through the ground floor room towards a door that leads to a staircase. Its steps lead down to the well. It descends below some brick arches that span the gap between the walls on either side of the steps. Before reaching the water, the steps pass through a chamber containing sculptures of Hindu deities.

The water in the well looked quite clear. A gentleman arrived whilst we were looking at it. After removing a few leaves from the surface of the water, he filled a couple of buckets. He told us that it was “good water”.

The Chausmukhi stepwell

Unlike the Khammavati, the Chatushmukhi vav is no longer used. It was constructed in 1510 AD. Apart from being disused, the structure is in very good condition, which is fortunate because it has an interesting design. The centrally located circular well (now dried up) is approached by four short staircases, each of them is at ninety degrees to its neighbours.

The Chausmukhi vav is beside a circular reservoir, the Gopi Talav. This was first built in about 1610 by Malik Gopi, a wealthy merchant of Surat. By 1673, it had become silted up and of no use as a water source. In 1716, some of its stones were removed to be used in the construction of Surat’s city wall. The Talav lost its former glory. However, in 2015, the city’s corporation restored it, and filled it with water. Today it and the vav form part of a well maintained park – a haven to which one can retreat to escape the noise and bustle of this busy city.

Surat, like Milan in Italy, is a throbbing hub of business and commerce. At first sight, it is, like Milan, not obviously attractive. But on closer examination both cities are studded with historical gems (and in the case of Surat, I am not referring to its famous diamond industry).

Catching rats in Surat, a city in Gujarat

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PROFESSOR ROBERT HARKNESS was my PhD supervisor between 1973 and 1977. He and his wife remained my close friends for the rest of their lives. Robert was interested in everything. His was not a fleeting interest, but a deep, enquiring passion. He was fascinated by the contents of hardware shops, especially when making his annual overland trips between the UK and the North of Greece.

During his explorations of these shops, he noticed that the designs of traps for rodents varied from place to place. Many of them were constructed so that the rat or other pest was not killed when caught in the trap. Over the years Robert collected a wide variety of differently designed traps.

The rat trap and the man who made it

Today (the 8th of December 2023) when wandering through one of the many bazaars in Surat (Gujarat), we spotted a metal worker’s shop. On a table outside it, there were a pile of rat traps for sale. They looked like little sheds or garages. At one end of each of them, there was a sliding door. Bait is placed in the far end of the trap. When a creature touches this, the trap door drops down and imprisons it. I do not know what the owner of such a device does with the victim enclosed within it. I suspect that the animal might be killed by drowning.

The owner of the shop said that most of the traps on display were made elsewhere, but he showed us one he had made. As we examined the traps and other ironmongery on offer, I thought how much Robert would have enjoyed visiting this shop.

A surprising city

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AFTER AN EXCITING DAY exploring Gopipura, an old part of Surat where my wife’s father’s family lived until over 100 years ago, we spent the following day seeing some of the better known historic sights of the city.

The castle on the bank of the River Tapi was built by the Muslim Tughlaq dynasty to defend Surat against attacks by the Bhils. It was later modified by the Mughals, the Dutch, and then the British.

Until the River Tapi silted up, Surat was an important international port city with a very active involvement in import/export activity. The silting up and the British acquisition of what became Bombay led to a decline in Surat’s prosperity. Over the years, its castle gradually fell into great disrepair.

Now, the castle is being painstakingly repaired. About half of it is currently open to visitors. The castle is being reconstructed using materials and techniques that archaeologists have discovered whilst investigating what has been left of the original structure. The result is a brand new version of what was most probably how the castle was before it began to disintegrate.

The rooms inside the castle recreate their original appearanc as deduced from archaeological examination. The rooms house a beautifully displayed collection of items portraying the history of Surat. A magnificent job has been done.

A man at the ticket booth of the castle reccomended downloading an app called “Surat Heritage Walk”, which is a very useful and well designed guide to the historical landmarks of the city.

After viewing the castle from a bridge that crosses the Tapi, which is how trading vessels would have seen it in days of yore, we visited the Christ Church (Church of North India) built in 1824. This simply decorated church has memorials to several Victorians, whi died in Surat.

We drove past the Mughal Sarai constructed in the reign of Shah Jehan. This large building was a hostel where pilgrims travelling between Surat and Mecca could be accommodated. Shah Jehan was first to encourage pilgrims going to Mecca to sail from Surat rather than travel overland or to embark on ships from Persian ports.

The Khudawan Khan Rojo, a mausoleum built in the mid 16th century, is newer than most of the medieval mosques that survive in Ahmedabad but, like them, it is rich in features adopted from Hindu and Jain temple design. The mausoleum contains the grave of its builder, Khudawan Khan, a military commander who was killed while fighting the Portuguese in about 1559/60.

The mausoleum described above is beautiful and impressive, but not ‘over the top’. The mausoleums in the Dutch, Armenian, and English cemeteries, which are close to each other and surrounded by crowded Muslim neighbourhoods, have to be seen to be believed. Many of the mausoleums are flamboyant structures with domes and details suggestive of both the art of India and the orient and also the Greek and Roman empires. These fantastic final resting places of Europeans who became rich in Surat are curiously exotic and ridiculous at the same time. The exuberance of the funerary architecture exceeds that which I have seen in European cemeteries in Calcutta and Fort Cochin. These monuments should not be missed by visitors to Surat.

As we drove between the places described above, we passed numerous old buildings, often in bad states of repair but rich in finely crafted decorative features.

After our tour, we lunched at Shukan, a restaurant that serves vegetarian thalis. As a meat eater I am not usually keen on vegetarian food, but what we were served at Shukan was much to my taste. The chef is a Rajasthani ‘mahraj’ (usually a Brahmin chef). His food was light but well flavoured. Unlike chefs cooking in the Surat traditional way, he used garlic, onions, and crushed peanuts. Yet, his dishes were not sugary as we found in other parts of Gujarat, notably in Ahmedabad and Saurashtra.

Although amongst the larger cities I have visited in Gujarat, Surat has fewer major tourist attractions than others (such as Ahmedabad, Baroda, Junagadh, and Bhuj). However, it has a visually exciting urban texture and vibrancy. The two days we allotted to our first visit to Surat was not long enough. We hope to return for longer in the future.