It is not generally recalled that Ahmedabad is one of India’s oldest surviving cities. Founded in 1411 by Sultan Ahmed Shah (after whom the city is named) and then in turn Mughal, Maratha and British, Ahmedabad will be 600 years old in 2011. The original city was the walled city on the eastern side of the Sabarmati which runs through the city dividing it into two, one representing the past and the other the present aspect of the city. On the eastern side is a warren of intricately carved pols, temples, mosques and gates; the compounds of numerous textile mills that once gave Ahmedabad the tag “Manchester of the East”; and Shahibaug, the gardens laid out by Shah Jahan when he was viceroy in Gujarat, where Ahmedabad’s old money has its mansions. On the west bank are modern institutions such as the IIM, busy shopping areas and the fast expanding residential areas of the upwardly mobile and aspiring middle and upper class.

Almost all the bombs that comprised Saturday’s serial blasts were set off on the eastern side of the river. This today is an area of crowded markets selling hardware and electronics, chemicals traders and neighbourhoods of the genteel, the lower middle class, former mill-workers and the poor. The Civil Hospital, also a target, is one of the country’s oldest and most efficient hospitals, a sprawling facility spread over 110 acres with specialists that draw equally from the low income groups in the city and prosperous Indians from overseas.

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