Why The People Of Bhavnagar Are The Best People On Earth..

Bhavnagari people are the best people on Earth.

There are so many great things about them that I can share. The first impression of this city on my mind was not very pretty. I have shared my experience about it before. But gradually I fell in love with this city.

Bhavnagar is a city of art lovers. I never attended this many music concerts (including Parthiv Gohil's concert), classical dance concerts (including Archana Joglekar's Kathak Dance), plays, and book fairs in Amdavad.

They can win an award for their hospitality. They feel honored if you let them serve you. Their food is the tastiest food you can ever imagine. They keep feeding you until you faint. I learned from my experience that if you want to have the right amount of food on your plate, just start saying no to all the food when you are still half hungry because they will still feed you to make sure you eat double the amount of your hunger.

I met a lot of amazing people in Bhavnagar. I can mention only a few of them here.

The life of Bhavnagari people is not centered around money. There was a very talented musician in Bhavnagar who used to teach music to his students for free. He used to compose music and selflessly teach those compositions to other students. I can never see that happen in Amdavad. People always try to sell their talent in Amdavad. No one ever does anything for free. He was a great music composer. His songs are not published commercially, so it is very possible that you haven't heard about him. I will post one of the songs that he composed and taught me at the end of the post if I can figure out how to post a video on YouTube. Once you listen to this song, you will know how talented he is. If he wanted to become a commercial music director he could, but he remained a cultural artist.

The people of Bhavnagar are far from showing off and bragging about their status. I had a classmate who invited all of us to her wedding. We found out at the wedding that she actually belonged to a royal family. Every woman of her family looked ravishing at the wedding. The queen herself decorated her Mandap with flowers. I was just thrilled to watch this royal wedding. She was undoubtedly the prettiest girl in the class but also very down to Earth. She never bragged about her royal connections. She never acted like a princess, and in Amdavad, every girl behaves like one.

Bhavnagari people are full of Bhav (Emotions). I have shared my experience about this Gynecologist in Bhavnagar who used to recite shloks in the OR. This can't happen in Amdavad. I remember my friend and I used to just walk in to any doctor's clinic and request them to teach us the practical medicine, and none of them said no. When I heard from my Amdavad friends that they had to actually pay the physicians to attend their clinic, I was shocked.

Humanity is still alive among the people of Bhavnagar. During the Godhra kand riots, I was trapped in my hostel with my other roommates. We didn't have any security guards or a rector (well, it was a government hostel). We also didn't have any food after two days because there was a curfew and we couldn't go outside. My hostel was on the border of a Muslim and a Hindu community. We could see the flames and smoke rising up in the sky from our hostel window. We were all scared to death. Our parents could not come to rescue us because there was a curfew in entire Gujarat.

Only one of us had a distant relative in the city. She called her uncle and he came to pick her up to take her to his house. When he saw that there are seven other girls in the hostel who do not have any relatives in the city, he took all of us with him, and one of us was Muslim. We stayed in his house with his family for three days. Needless to say, their hospitality was, out of question, the best one ever.

There's a lot we could learn from the people of Bhavnagar. I have certainly learned a lot from them. My love and gratitude for this city and its people will always remain in my heart.


P.S. : This is a song I learned from Rajesh Vaishnav in Bhavnagar.
Photo Courtesy: Dr. Rishi Kadikar