| widened roads and prominent tourist monuments
| seem to make the both, planners and cons happy.
|
| but then, who cares about the city?

Decades-old buildings fall to urbanisation

Tanvir A Siddiqui

Ahmedabad, March 24: Modern comforts at the cost of old world charm? For
today Astodia Road presents a perfect lesson on how history fades into
the oblivion before dust settles on the debris of 70- to 80-year-old
buildings on the razing list. Tell-tale structures symbolic of the past
glory this road once basked in, today are rubble, thanks to a demolition
drive by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation on Saturday.

Sample this, the road’s prized claim to fame:

• Gujarat’s first woman graduate, Vidyagauri Nilkanth, used to live in one of the houses on this road.
• The owners of Nagri Mills used to stay on this road until 1947. Their abode, Nagri Building, is located just near the municipal school building, is currently being pulled down and soon will become a thing of the past.
• Mushaws, the owners of Vivekanand Mills, also lived on this road and the building is being razed like others.
• The road was once used by Viceroys to go to the Church near Victoria Garden and people would call it Viceroy Road before Independence.

....

There are two landmark monuments on this road protected by
Archaeological Survey of India. With the widening of the road, they will
become more prominent to attract people’s attention. Retired journalist
I M Khan, whose house is also losing a part to the road widening
exercise, sees this as a sign of changing times. “When we talk of
Vibrant Gujarat, vibrations of development have to reach all over and
this road can be no exception,” he says.