Ahmedabad, 31 October 2013

Presented here are pictures clicked last year during our visit to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s birth place in Nadiad – the town that is located at around half an hour distance from Ahmedabad in southern direction to Vadodara. Nadiad has two major attractions for visitors – one is Santram mandir whose mahant never steps out of the mandir campus during lifetime, the other attraction is Sardar Patel’s birth place located at a few distance away from Santram mandir.

The main gate of Sardar Patel’s birth place remains closed. If you want to visit it, you need to walk to the street on the backside of the house. There is Mahatma Gandhi’s bust just on the front side of the main gate of Sardar Patel birth place. To our surprise, contrary to Ahmedabad, the streets and roads in Nadiad are made of concrete and not asphalt.

Here is the room where Sardar Patel took birth. Another photo shows the backside of the house. You need to seek keys from neighbor to get in. The neighbors are kind and helpful to offer us key.

Presented in pictures are various elements of the house from inside. The house is not so well kept. It is uncleaned and you can find dirt inside. This was actually Sardar Patel’s maternal uncle’s house and the next generation of that family who own the house live abroad. Local MLA Pankajbhai and others have time and again contacted them and requested to donate/sell this house so that it can be better prepared for visitors, however they have failed to get any consent. The house has upper floor too which is also presented in pictures.

Curious Sardar Patel lovers, Japan Pathak, Chhayank Mehta, Ajitsinh Rana and Ravi Ghiyar on a visit to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s birth place during which the pictures above were clicked.

Note: Union minister Dinsha Patel claims in his every other speech that he visits Sardar’s birth place regularly to lit a lamp there. However when we inquired, we didn’t find anyone to support this fact. From the people who live close to Sardar’s birth place said Dinsha is just a big talker.

So therefore we didn’t see any lamp or matchbox inside and we found dust everywhere inside the house. However an experience to be in the house where Sardar Patel took birth was unmatched and we enjoyed every moment of that visit.