Dhal ni Pol - Amanda

"The Pol, a small residential unit consisting of a single
street (usually a dead end street) with a group of houses
is generally protected by a massive gate at the entrance.
They are densely populated and when put together they
look like a maze with winding narrow lanes forming a
series of micro-neighbourhoods. "
from Residential Cluster, Ahmedabad: Housing based on the traditional Pols
by KANIKA AGARWAL
PLEA2009 - 26th Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture, Quebec City, Canada, 22-24 June 2009

There are approximately 600 Pols in the old city of Ahmedabad. Dhal ni Pol is built on a small hillock, reflected in its name Dhal which means sloping or slanting. Within the pol are smaller enclaves called khadkis. According to one of the pamphlets I've been given, at one time khadkis would have been inhabited by people of the same social group or caste. The pamphlet quotes a newspaper report from 1879 stating that a house in the pol couldn't be mortgaged or sold to an outsider without it first having been offered to people within the pol. Talking to a few people it seems that this still holds today to some extent - we heard of someone who wanted to buy a house here, but the owner decided to wait and sell it within the community. In a Jain pol like the one where we are staying, this obviously makes it easier to achieve consensus about daily practices that may have religious as well as social significance, especially in an environment where there is so much contact with neighbours.

Dairy cattle

There is a Jain dairy in the pol and the 20 or so strong herd wanders round the narrow streets being fed leftovers by the residents. There are also scores of dogs and several birdfeeders called chabutras which are kept supplied with food and water. These incorporate the influences of Hindu, Muslim and Jain architectural designs, but the practice of putting them up is linked to the Jain faith in which the departing soul assumes the form of birds and animals.

Chabutras

If this makes the pol sound like a closed space, that's not how it feels. My impression after a short time (and not speaking Hindi or Gujarati), is of how welcoming people are. We walk around the pol everyday and each time we are approached by someone who wants to chat or to invite us to attend a dance or look at something. So much happens outside - washing up dishes and washing clothes at the taps, sitting on the otla, the wide steps, in the evening.

But I'm also wary of making it sound idyllic. I know very little of how people feel about the pol, about each other, or about us being here.

Tomorrow we will have some more help with translation and over the next few days I hope to understand a bit more. From an anthropological point of view this is a lightening trip, a small gesture. There are things you notice when you are still green and things you can find out by interviewing people. But there are other things you can only understand after being somewhere a long time.

An immediate question I have is about people's occupations. I know for example that our neighbour Mr Parmar is a tailor. And one night we met a business studies student who is living in a hostel in the next pol, and another night a stockbroker who has renovated his pol house because although he'd prefer to live in the new part of the city, his mother and grandmother do not want to leave the pol - so clearly this is a diverse population.

The Municipal Council are very keen to protect the pols from commercial development hence the big heritage drive that includes heritage walks, art projects and the renovation of haveli like the one in which we are staying. Heide Imai, an architect who studied at MMU, did her PhD thesis on the roji of Tokyo and found they were in constant danger of being demolished to make way for new highrise offices on the one hand and of becoming themeparks on the other. That hasn't quite happened here yet.

(photos by Steve)