Baroda - the Banyan Tree City

Baroda - the Banyan Tree City 

My tryst with Baroda - now Vadodara - is 50 years old. Lovingly called Banyan city for large numbers of Banyan trees spread across, the city is benign, gentle, lacking the aggression and intimidation of big cities. It feels small and snug; compact and benign. Coming from a small town like Jamnagar, I felt Baroda larger, cleaner, more sophisticated, more cultured, more polite, more everything. 

Baroda is where I began a new life; we got married here, acquired our first car, a used Ambassador, built our first house, our girls were born here. The city thus holds a special place in our hearts. I visited here for the first time in the summer of 1970. I stayed with my brother at his home in Kareli Baug, a very leafy, serene housing suburb of the city. I roamed the city on a borrowed bicycle. The pretty gardens filled the city with tree-lined roads, small and squat buildings, no high rise yet. 

Alighting at the magnificent Baroda railway station, I realized that someone stole my shoes on the train. I walked barefoot to my brother's workplace, borrowed ten rupees, and brought a pair of slippers. Not a civic way to enter such a fine and civilized city. I visited Baroda frequently and fell in love with it when I made a close friend in that city. He introduced me to the smaller and finer pleasures of Baroda; laying on the grass in a verdant Kamati Baag, cycling across overflowing Viswamitri river in monsoon, eating hot pakoras at Raopura Tower, watching movies at Art Deco Maharani Santadevi cinema, roaming around girls' hostel of Fine Arts faculty, and listening to jukebox in Cosmopolitan restaurant filled with foreign students. 

Amidst heavy rains in July 1978, my wife & I drove down in a beat-up fiat car of a friend from Ahmadabad with our merger possession of two tin trunks, one mattress, and a heart full of memories of our stay in Ahmadabad. We made a grand entry into Banyan city with hope, dreams, and Rs. 115. 

Our newly married life trudged along nicely in Baroda. Our possessions remained meager, but hearts grew bigger in Baroda. We hosted more numbers of guests here than we ever have. We also made more friends here than we have anywhere else. 

I returned to Baroda for one more stint later and found the city changed. Gone was the serenity and smallness; gone were the nice roads, and the greenery, and old-world charm. 

We considered returning here once while we made our post-retirement plan. But the lure of Bombay and the suburb of Bandra proved too strong to take us away from where we have put down roots. 

Do I miss Baroda? Yes, many times, for all the good times and the good things that happened to us, for all the people whom we gained and whom we lost in that city. 

Would I ever go back to live there?

Only if Mumbai lets me.