Amdavadi Gastronomy

From last 6 years I have been moving in and out of my home town Ahmedabad. It has been almost 8 months that I moved to Auckland with my husband. But there has not been a day when I was transported back to Ahmedabad, located in the western state of India.
When friends from other places ask what is special about your home town, I am not really sure I can frame an answer which will make them eager to visit Ahmedabad. There are no golden sand beaches, no scenic mountains or dark green forests. And to shock many, it is a non-alcoholic dry state with majority food joints serving only “strictly vegetarian” food!
But if I think what is good about it? I imagine myself, zipping through the cars on my silver-grey activa (scooter) passing through all the vibrant and busy streets, wearing dupatta (cotton stoles) on my face like sword fighters with only eyes uncovered from the scorching heat. Street shopping and food like many other Indian cities makes this place livelier. Let’s take a ride until your eyes, nose and empty stomach can take it…
Start riding from Law Garden where sellers start putting up their stalls around late noon with traditional and casual clothes and that itself is the best time to bargain for those colourful clothes with mirror and metal works. Within few seconds you will smell buttery hot corns and sticky sweetness of sugar-cane juices. March straight until the junction of C.G.Road and take a circle inside Municipal market crossing all sev-puri, pani-puri, mini dosas, sandwiches-slices (local term for soft cornered bread slice with butter and black salt) and more clothes shops. Keep right and merge in Commerce college road, challenge your nose not to smell sweet chocolaty flavour of cold coco and cold coffees.
Drive straight until Vijay Char Rasta where you the scent of deadly vada pav (spicy potato coated with chickpea flour fried into a ball which is pressed under bun coated with garlicky hot chutney and fried in salty butter to make it hot like the outside temperature)! Take the wider University Road, where you can speed until your nose drags you to the smell of gingery-cardamom cutting (sweet milk tea in small glass about the size of a tequila shot) and Maska-buns (almost 150-200 gm of soft white Maska meaning butter spread between the soft bun) .
Again Keep right and merge on the busy IIM road. Browse through all the best-seller books sold cheaply on roads just outside the walls of Indian Institute of Management where some of the brainiest students of the country study quietly. Head straight till Vastrapur square over flooded with all the taste bud teasing food: Dabeli, dalwada, kulfis and what not… Drive in any direction and you will hit another of “world famous in Ahmedabad” food item.
… And this is how I think my home town is… responsible for my  foodie mood swings and the tyre around my tummy.