Ghost town of Gujarat

Opulent, majestic, and like nothing you’ve ever seen before on the sub-continent, these havelis — spread over 18 mohallas — were built by wealthy Dawoodi Bohras at the turn of the last century. No one is quite certain why they chose to be inspired by hacienda architecture, or, indeed, why most of the owners visit their magnificent homes only occasionally. A few of these have changed hands locally; one building recently sold for Rs 30 lakh, considered an astronomical sum in these parts, while most go for around Rs 10 lakh.

But it’s easier to hazard a guess at the second question, rather than the first. Involved mostly in the hardware business, the Dawoodi Bohras see little business opportunity in little Sidhpur, and prefer to operate out of cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, and even abroad. This, in fact, is the channel through which the news of this quaint town and its magnificent buildings spread abroad; even today, Sidhpur attracts many more foreign tourists than Indians.

‘‘It takes me three-and-half hours to escort tourists around the havelis, there are so many of them,’’ says Tahirbhai Abdulkadar Calcuttawala, who plays guide to foreigners. There is also much to admire and appreciate in the mostly wooden buildings: If the exquisite carvings on the large windows and even larger doors don’t take your breath away, the myths will.

One haveli, for instance, draws visitors throughout the year for its 365 windows, but the owners themselves dismiss the claim as an exaggeration. ‘‘None of us has ever counted the windows, it’s outsiders who claim there are so many,’’ laughs Iqbal Jhaveri, 45, whose grandfather built the haveli. ‘‘Maybe if you count the bahar ka shutter, andar ki window, jali, kaanch ki window, double ventilation, then one window accounts for eight. And all of them together would add up to 365.’’

But he acknowledges the superiority of the architecture and the logic behind the unusually large number of windows. ‘‘Even now, one doesn’t need a fan in the height of summer. It’s a sort of a Hawa Mahal,’’ he says. So the 365 bari wali haveli might be a misnomer, but that doesn’t make it any less of an attraction.

Another haveli in the mohalla has a false set of three windows. ‘‘Can you tell the false ones from the real ones?’’ asks Sarafali Tyreali Madraswala, as he runs his fingers along the false windows. ‘‘French lokoni ekad toli to utrej chhe (At any given time you can always find a group of French tourists hanging around here),’’ he says. ‘‘But the number of tourists has fallen since Godhra.’’

Though Sidhpur itself has a violent communal history — though untouched by the Godhra aftermath, the town witnessed riots in 1992 — the peace-loving Dawoodi Bohras and their havelis have never borne the brunt of religious ire. They stand today as they did over a century ago, the proud sentinels of a chequered past.