16. Food, Friends and Family : A trip to Gurgaon, Delhi and Amritsar

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!! 

The Kuchh Nai Scotch bottled by an Indian, because polite Indians always say 'kuchh nai' ('nothing') when asked 'what will you drink'

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!!

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. 

Trucks waiting to enter Pakistan through the Trade Gate

We wanted to run with the Tricolour too but there was a mile long queue. Patriotism knew no bounds here.

Two women BSF jawans kickstart the ceremony, something I would like Pakistan to match

Dancing to the beat of "mera rang de basanti chola"

Who can raise his leg higher

The flags coming down

Taking the folded flag

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.

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. 

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.

The Chapati assembly line

The dough pile

The Langar

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. 

juicy jalebis

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.

The narrow and only lane into the park

Bullet holes in the wall

The well in which hundreds of people fell and drowned while trying to dodge bullets

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. 

The Queen's hut where we had lunch

meeting friends after a long time

Inside the Queen's Hut

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!

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.

The family

The yummiest Carrot cake and vanilla custard, the piece de resistance of the party prepared by Renuka our cousin

The pensive beauty

"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.