The Colossus

A Trip to Gujarat Is Now Incomplete Without Seeing the Statue of Unity.

- Anurag Mallick

Fine. The Diwali weekend may not have been the best time to set out for a visit to the Statue of Unity. We left Baroda on a Saturday morning, naively calculating that we’d drive two hours to the statue, spend an hour or two there and head to Surat. The roads were lined with congratulatory signboards—‘the world’s tallest statue, built by L&T in just 33 months, a world record’. Comparative posters showed how other iconic statues measured up… or didn’t. Christ the Redeemer in Brazil (38m), Statue of Liberty in New York City (93m), Ushiku Daibutsu in Japan (120m), Spring Temple Buddha in China (153m); the 182m-tall statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel dwarfed them all.

Thinking we had left early, we turned off the highway into Dabhoi to check out its old southern gateway Nandodi Gate. The once-fortified town had four gateways and the Hira Bhagol (gate) was suffused with intricate carvings and pillared arches. Local legends recount how Hiradhar, the architect, was buried here alive. Some claim it was because the king did not want him to replicate a similar masterpiece for anyone else. Others say Hira ran short of stones as he pilfered them to create a tank for his lover, thereby incurring the king’s wrath. Whatever the story, death was a heavy price to pay for a skilled architect. Yet, Hira’s name lives on.

Soon, we were back on the highway towards Kevadiya. We had a sinking feeling as every vehicle seemed headed that way, but it was too late to turn back. After an eternity, we were directed to a massive makeshift parking lot. It seemed like we were trapped in the Kumbh Mela or the mass migration of wildebeests.