The contrast is too stark. Today, while the nation remembered Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his birth anniversary, it was just another day at Khamasa’s single-storeyed building where he once lived.When Sardar Patel came to Ahmedabad in 1917, he bought the house. A member of the Ahmedabad Municipality, he spent about a year-and-a-half in this house before shifting to Bhadra. Today, the house is divided into two properties. While half of it is a printing press, the other part houses a banana godown.Mohammed Ali Qureshi, owner of the banana godown, says: ‘‘It is a matter of pride for me. I bought it from one Babubhai Patel who had bought it from one Dashrath Patel — his forefathers had bought the house from Sardar Patel.’’ Qureshi has made compartments in the room for storage.Political scientist Professor Siddharth N. Bhatt, who has researched the life and work of Sardar Patel, says: ‘‘We have written several letters to the state government, asking it to buy that property at Khamasa and turn it into a memorial, but no one cares.”Bhatt says Sardar’s ownership documents of the house could have been destroyed by the British when he was arrested. ‘‘Sardar never maintained a diary,’’ Bhatt rues. The house at Bhadra, where he stayed for eight years from 1919, has now been converted into Sardar Smarak Bhawan. Its in-charge Ashwin Dave says: ‘‘Sardar’s sons handed over this building to the AMC in 1951. In 1989, it was handed over to the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Memorial Society.”
