It was a couple of years since we had travelled long
distance partly because we had developed travel
fatigue after our travel frenzy
post retirement and also because Rajeev managed to break his leg in January
this year. So after our Lucknow visit we did our erstwhile customary annual
stopover at Gurgaon with our friends Dennis and Maggie. D and M incidentally,
are our travel buddies and somehow even more footloose than us, so as soon as
we announced our intention (of visiting them) they decided to throw in a short
trip to Amritsar.
But the very first day we landed in Gurgaon we got to
attend a pot-luck dinner with D&M’s morning walkers’ group! We met these
beautiful, cheery couples who laugh so much it could as well be the laughter
club. When somebody said he did not want anything (kutch nahi) to drink, the
host, Col Soni promptly produced a Scotch Whisky called Kuchh Nai!!
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| The Kuchh Nai Scotch bottled by an Indian, because polite Indians always say 'kuchh nai' ('nothing') when asked 'what will you drink' |
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| The joggers park |
Well after
a lot of Kuchh Nai, home cooked dinner and a couple of rounds of Tambola, which
Maggie produced like a genie, we started our Gurgaon trip with a bang.
After a couple of days of card-playing and Metro trips
to Delhi by Maggie and me while the men pottered around the house (lazy bones),
we left for our much awaited trip to Amritsar. D had pre-booked in the Shatabdi
Express which leaves around 7am. D decided to drive from Gurgaon to N Delhi
station and park the car overnight in the station parking lot. After much
negotiating we had to shell out Rs 800 for parking over-night in the open!! So
perhaps not such a good idea; but it saved us the trouble of haggling for a cab
late the next night.
The Shatabdi trip was very pleasant. They kept us
fortified with morning tea and breakfast while the train snaked through the
verdant fields of Punjab. Nature’s bounty coupled with human labour has brought
much prosperity to this state.
We were looking forward to meeting and visiting our
friends Rajan and Neelam Trikha with whom we had shared much fun time during
our posting in Mumbai. Rajan though busy himself, had chalked out our
itinerary, which we followed to the T- it also included tasting most of the
famous cuisine of Amritsar.
Amritsar
The city closest to Pakistan (32kms) and the spiritual
centre for the Sikhs is home to the vibrant and spotless Harmandar Sahab or the
Golden Temple. Our short trip was intended only to cover the Attari, Wagah
Border and the Golden Temple. The last time I had missed seeing the Golden Temple
was in December 1983 when I had spent a month in Chandigarh attending the
Intermediate Programme for Probationary Officers of the SBI. It was the time
when Bhindranwale was holed up inside the temple so we were talked out of
visiting the place.
Kesar
da Dhaba
As soon as we reached, our friend directed us to one of
the oldest Dhabas in Amritsar, “Kesar da Dhaba” established in 1916. We went through the lanes of Amritsar,
our taxi driver getting constant directions on his mobile from more
knowledgeable sources. Though the dhaba was in the by lanes of Amritsar its clientele was quite up scale. We ordered Dal Makhani (obviously!),
Baigan ka Bharta, Shahi Paneer and a Raita and Tandoori Roti. I am not
exaggerating when I say that I have never tasted better Punjabi food in my
life. For one thing everything is cooked in desi ghee and lots of it!. Our taxi
driver joked that it was not for nothing that all the cardiac speciality
hospitals have opened shop in Amritsar! I nearly had a heart attack myself
seeing the food swimming in desi ghee but the taste was ummm!!
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| The Amritsar cycle rickshaw. Each city in India has its own distinct rickshaw |
Wagah
Border
Our friend Rajan had arranged for us to see the Beating
Retreat or Lowering of the Flags ceremony at the Wagah border from the VIP
enclosure, the same evening. The VIP passes need to be applied for a couple of
days in advance from the BSF office on the Bypass road. The posturing by the Indian
Border Security Force and the Pakistani Rangers was rather funny and the public
enthusiasm and gusto shown in raising slogans and dancing to popular filmy
patriotic songs was quite infectious not unlike the scenes at a India-Pakistan
cricket match. I feel if there was no Pakistan our lives would be quite boring
because half the fun and half the pain in our lives would not be there. Jio,
jio Pakistan.
This ceremony of simultaneously lowering the Indian and
Pakistani flags every evening has been going on since 1959. We came to know,
while comparing notes with others, that the atmosphere there changes depending
on the current state of relationship between the two countries. While we were
there it was a very festive atmosphere with thousands of people on the Indian
side dancing and running upto the gate with the Tricolour in hand. Sharp at 5
pm (timing changes with the season) the tall BSF soldiers in their khaki
uniforms and red turbans, stride upto the gate and fling it open as is done by
the Pakistani Rangers in their dark green uniforms, on the other side. The
performance is so synchronised on both sides that I’m sure they must be
practicing together at some point of time, while they snort and glare and throw
up their legs and bang gates for the benefit of the spectators every evening. With much back and forth marching and kicking
up their legs (one jawan nearly knocked off his own turban!) finally the flags
are brought down together – not an inch up or down and the gates are banged
closed for the day.
At the end of the ceremony, it was touching to see the
spectators on both sides of the border, from behind closed gates, waving out to
one another and taking pictures of the spectators on the other side.
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| Trucks waiting to enter Pakistan through the Trade Gate |
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| We wanted to run with the Tricolour too but there was a mile long queue. Patriotism knew no bounds here. |
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| Two women BSF jawans kickstart the ceremony, something I would like Pakistan to match |
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| Dancing to the beat of "mera rang de basanti chola" |
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| Who can raise his leg higher |
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| The flags coming down |
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| Taking the folded flag |
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| Banging the gate shut |
Though we thought after such a heavy lunch we would not
be able to eat much dinner our friend insisted we try the food at The Brothers Restaurant. The veg biryani
and raita we ordered went down fairly easily. What is it about Amritsari food! Our
friend insists it is the water which makes the food tastier than elsewhere and
easily digestible.
The next morning we were to have potato kulchas with
chholey at a place called Kulcha Land
– what else! Incidentally it was next to the Republic of Chicken! I think this was the
first time I had kulchas, which are vastly different to parathas, for
breakfast.
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| Taste of 5 aabs |
Harmandar
Sahab or Golden Temple
After being thus fortified we went to the much
anticipated visit of the Golden Temple. I can tell you no matter how many
pictures you have seen of the temple the sheer grandeur and majesty of the
place at first sight leaves you spell bound. It is spotless and serene and alive. I think
it is so vibrant with energy because it has the blessings of not one, not two,
but ten gurus emanating from it. We took three hours to take a round of the
place, going right up to the golden domed roof. Going early morning was a good
idea because it was cool and not crowded.
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| The inevitable 'Rab ne bana di jodi' poses |
The Golden Temple has the maximum number of visitors
per day – even more than the Taj Mahal. Every visitor is welcome at the
community kitchen called “langar”. It is no mean feat feeding thousands of
people every day. We saw this amazing chapatti making machine in which dough is
put in at one end and nice round puffed chapattis come out the other –
ingenious!! Apart from the machines there are hundreds of volunteers cooking
and cleaning every day to keep not only the kitchen running but to keep the
huge temple premises spotlessly clean. Always an admirer of the Sikh community my
admiration went a notch higher after this trip.
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| The Chapati assembly line |
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| The dough pile |
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| The Langar |
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| Washing of utensils |
Our Sikh guide would hear nothing of the heavy
breakfast we had and insisted we at least taste the “kheer” (rice pudding)
being served in the langar. After the kheer in the temple we had to taste the “jalebis”
at a nearby shop and the “lassi” at a nameless corner shop with at least a
100gm of “malai” in each glass – all items in our itinerary.
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| juicy jalebis |
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| Malai topped lassi |
Jallianwala
Bagh
Close to the Golden Temple is the Jallianwala Bagh
which symbolises the most shameful chapter of the British rule in India and may
have been one of the reasons of the end of The Raj in India. On 13 April 1919 General
E H Dyer marched with 50 riflemen and ordered them to shoot at a crowd of 15000
-20000 unarmed people, including women and children, in the confined space of
the Jallianwala Bagh, till their ammunitions lasted. An estimate put the dead at
a 1000 and many more wounded. Rabindranath Tagore had renounced the knighthood
conferred upon him by the British Government as a protest against such barbaric
cruelty.
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| The narrow and only lane into the park |
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| Bullet holes in the wall |
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| The well in which hundreds of people fell and drowned while trying to dodge bullets |
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| The memorial |
Amritsar
Club
Our sightseeing completed we were invited for lunch
with our friends at the Amritsar Club which is housed in a heritage building
belonging to Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Needless to talk about the food and the
hospitality of our host for he kept talking of what he could not feed us on
this trip rather than what was already heaped on our plates. After some
emotional goodbyes and promise of return trips to Pune and Gurgaon we parted
from our friends.
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| The Queen's hut where we had lunch |
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| meeting friends after a long time |
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| Inside the Queen's Hut |
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| Our good looking hosts |
The trip back on the Shatabdi was equally comfortably
and I managed to have the hot samosa with the evening tea and the dinner served
in the train. Wow what a feed!
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| Amritsar railway station |
With
Family
After we returned from Amritsar it was time to catch up
with family. A day spent with Rajeev’s cousins and nieces in Delhi was the icing on the
cake and a fitting finale to a wonderful trip.
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| The family |
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| The yummiest Carrot cake and vanilla custard, the piece de resistance of the party prepared by Renuka our cousin |
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| The pensive beauty |
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| "Ogoo" |
The next day we were on the Duronto express for our trip back home (one meaning of duronto being 'putting an end to distances' it seemed rather an appropriate train to catch). A whole jing bang of class X kids from Kolhapur traveled with us and kept us entertained by their antics.
