timeless!

This month I went to Deolali [a small non-touristic hill station in the Nashik district, Maharashtra] with my mother to bring in her birthday. Although my family has a holiday-home there, it was my first visit and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was largely a Gujarati settlement [apart from the military base that is]...
Lazy afternoons on porch swings, lunch in the Jain canteen across the road, healthy sandwiches and thandai for dinner, Jain derasars [temples]... the works!

I was most impressed by the cozy tourist accommodation or 'arogya bhavans'. Old houses converted into comfortable guest houses equipped with an attendee to suit the needs of a typical Gujarati family. One can opt for the attendee to clean, help out in the cooking [chopping, washing, we know how fussy our ba's and nani's are about 'doing it themselves'!] or even do all the cooking in your very own kitchen typical maharaj-style! How awesome is that! And what better way to maintain these wonderful houses than to convert them into guesthouses, instead of breaking them down and constructing fancy hotels.