“Be the change you wish to see in the world” – Mahatma Gandhi.

Dear Climate Healers,

We landed in Ahmedabad and met up with our car and driver, Sanjaybhai for the next week in Gujarat. Over the week, Sanjaybhai endeared himself to us with his constant smile and refrain,
“This is India!”
whenever someone cut him off or did something unexpected on the road, such as drive the wrong way. He was always cheerful no matter what atrocity happened around him on the road.

In Ahmedabad, we stayed at the guest house in Sabarmati Ashram, the hallowed place that Mahatma Gandhi built starting in 1920. We screened The Land Of Ahimsa at Gujarat Vidyapith, the University that Mahatma Gandhi founded and Vinay Mandir, the school for Harijans that he started close by. The memory of the choral voice of hundreds of children at Vinay Mandir singing their welcome song still gives me goosebumps even today.

At Gujarat Vidyapith, we had a sumptuous vegan lunch at their cafeteria with Amit, our host, providing the peanut buttermilk. The cafeteria operator was intrigued by the idea of substituting the cow’s milk version with the peanut milk version and he is now working with Amit to make it happen on a regular basis. We celebrated Pareen’s birthday in Ahmedabad in the company of Vegan activists. Mukul Parmar of Emkay Ghee told us that he has been veganizing the restaurants in Ahmedabad by selling them Vegan ghee in bulk a lot cheaper than the market price of the cow’s milk version.

Gujarat may go vegan and not even know it!

Next stop, Rajkot, where Dolly’s family showed us all their memorabilia, including a large stack of handwritten letters from Mahatma Gandhi to Dolly’s grandfather, Chaganlal Joshi. We stayed at the Atmiya University guest house where we screened the Land of Ahimsa to an appreciative audience, including Dolly’s extended family. Atmiya University prides itself on being the best university in Gujarat.

From Rajkot, we went to Baroda where our documentary was screened at MS University, the oldest university in Baroda. Shri Aurobindo taught at MS University and the History department which hosted us at MS University is filled with replicas of that era.

Surat was the final city we visited in Gujarat. Surat is a center of diamond and textile processing with 80% of the world’s diamonds going through Surat and 50% of them getting sold in the US. In Surat, we screened the documentary at Sanksar Bharati school and Auro University, again to much acclaim. Auro University also prides itself on being a top university in Gujarat. We felt blessed to have visited some of the best universities in Gujarat to screen The Land Of Ahimsa.

I fell ill in Surat with a stomach infection and had to stay back while Dolly, Akhil and Pareen completed the Rajasthan leg of our tour. I rejoined the team in New Delhi en route to Kathmandu, Nepal for the Himalayan Vegan Festival.

With much love,
Sailesh on behalf of Akhil, Dolly, Pareen, Vega Cow & Climate Healer and the Climate Healers team.