It was amazing how things worked out. A perfect vacation with the perfect company (Aastha, Garima, Kritika, Nishtha, Piyush, Saurabh and Sridhar). We missed you Varuni and Nandita. OK let's get to the details.
Friday
2 p.m. : When will the clock strike 6! Can't wait any more.
6 p.m. : Oh shit I forgot this! Hurry hurry. I'll be late.
7 p.m. : I've reached the station. Where is everybody?
7.20 p.m. : Sridhar is the first one to get the shock after seeing Nishtha at the station luggage in tow. She had been calling everyone all day and wishing them a happy journey. Her way of giving a return gift to everyone (refer this post).
7.40 p.m. : The cavalry starts to arrive.
8 p.m. : Train delayed.
8.30 p.m. : Piyush and Nishtha have got the wrong tickets! Some finger pointing and hustle and bustle ensues and we manage to manage somehow in the end.
9.15 p.m. : Train finally arrives. We settle down, get the desired seats and the fun begins. Sridhar was the butt of all the jokes, BIG BOSS was a prominent feature, midnight snacks, lack of sleep, unbearable pain in the neck and more jokes summed up the journey.
Saturday
Morning : Train reaches. We hire a taxi from the station itself. A little ruckus on the way to the hotel when the taxi driver bumps a parked car. We move into a nice hotel with nice rooms and clean bathrooms (very important). Freshening up and breakfast follows.
Afternoon : Super-hot weather, busy streets and our first visit to the Golden Temple. The place is huge and very beautiful. The sun was beating down on us so we had to skip the rest of it. We did volunteer to help clear the rubble from a corner of the temple just before leaving.
Friday
2 p.m. : When will the clock strike 6! Can't wait any more.
6 p.m. : Oh shit I forgot this! Hurry hurry. I'll be late.
7 p.m. : I've reached the station. Where is everybody?
7.20 p.m. : Sridhar is the first one to get the shock after seeing Nishtha at the station luggage in tow. She had been calling everyone all day and wishing them a happy journey. Her way of giving a return gift to everyone (refer this post).
7.40 p.m. : The cavalry starts to arrive.
8 p.m. : Train delayed.
8.30 p.m. : Piyush and Nishtha have got the wrong tickets! Some finger pointing and hustle and bustle ensues and we manage to manage somehow in the end.
9.15 p.m. : Train finally arrives. We settle down, get the desired seats and the fun begins. Sridhar was the butt of all the jokes, BIG BOSS was a prominent feature, midnight snacks, lack of sleep, unbearable pain in the neck and more jokes summed up the journey.
Saturday
Morning : Train reaches. We hire a taxi from the station itself. A little ruckus on the way to the hotel when the taxi driver bumps a parked car. We move into a nice hotel with nice rooms and clean bathrooms (very important). Freshening up and breakfast follows.
Afternoon : Super-hot weather, busy streets and our first visit to the Golden Temple. The place is huge and very beautiful. The sun was beating down on us so we had to skip the rest of it. We did volunteer to help clear the rubble from a corner of the temple just before leaving.
Amritsar is a very old-Delhi kind of city, or at least the parts we saw. Shops all around, narrow streets full of traffic and loads of people.
Jalianwala Bagh is a garden now, with only a section of the wall with bullet holes and the well in which people had jumped in to try and save their lives being preserved.
Lunch on the highway to Wagah was highly forgettable.
Wagah : We start looking at stuff around us and refer to it as the "last of its kind in India" like the last petrol pump or the last post office. The excitement was building up with every check-post we crossed. We were ushered to the "VIP Gallery" which was just closer to the border then the rest of the seating. There were some seats right near the gate but those were full of high-ranked officials. Anyways, the electric atmosphere made up for everything.
It seemed like it was a special occasion but as I was told that this happened everyday. There were nearly 2000 people on our side of the border compared to 20 people on the Pakistani side, which was a shame frankly. It would have been so much better if the racket we were creating on our side was matched by some enthusiastic noise from the other side. But all they managed to do was make us aware of their presence during the intermediate pause after a huge round of wild chanting and applause. It was hilarious after a point.
In no other state in the country, or for that matter anywhere else in the world would you be able to find such a setting right at the border of a nation. The flamboyance and the national pride of Punjab was evident in every little detail. All that setup - the check posts, the personnel, the stadium seating, the music, the entire ceremony is just an investment for national pride. There is no source of revenue except a small souvenier stand which might sell just enough to buy lunch for a few people. There was loud Bollywood music blaring through the speakers and the people were dancing to it. The young women were invited to come and dance infront of the crowd before the ceremony began. Kritika and Nishtha got a chance to do just that and I was very jealous. The ceremony in itself is a treat to watch. Soldiers marching (almost running) in sync, shouting orders, stamping their feet on the ground as hard as they could backed by the ear-splitting roars of the crowd. It was almost like showing the Pakistanis the finger in a very official way.
Lunch on the highway to Wagah was highly forgettable.
Wagah : We start looking at stuff around us and refer to it as the "last of its kind in India" like the last petrol pump or the last post office. The excitement was building up with every check-post we crossed. We were ushered to the "VIP Gallery" which was just closer to the border then the rest of the seating. There were some seats right near the gate but those were full of high-ranked officials. Anyways, the electric atmosphere made up for everything.
It seemed like it was a special occasion but as I was told that this happened everyday. There were nearly 2000 people on our side of the border compared to 20 people on the Pakistani side, which was a shame frankly. It would have been so much better if the racket we were creating on our side was matched by some enthusiastic noise from the other side. But all they managed to do was make us aware of their presence during the intermediate pause after a huge round of wild chanting and applause. It was hilarious after a point.
In no other state in the country, or for that matter anywhere else in the world would you be able to find such a setting right at the border of a nation. The flamboyance and the national pride of Punjab was evident in every little detail. All that setup - the check posts, the personnel, the stadium seating, the music, the entire ceremony is just an investment for national pride. There is no source of revenue except a small souvenier stand which might sell just enough to buy lunch for a few people. There was loud Bollywood music blaring through the speakers and the people were dancing to it. The young women were invited to come and dance infront of the crowd before the ceremony began. Kritika and Nishtha got a chance to do just that and I was very jealous. The ceremony in itself is a treat to watch. Soldiers marching (almost running) in sync, shouting orders, stamping their feet on the ground as hard as they could backed by the ear-splitting roars of the crowd. It was almost like showing the Pakistanis the finger in a very official way.
The Temple: We went back to the Golden Temple and it was b-e-a-utiful. The temple was lit up and there was this glimmering reflection in the water, and the weather was much cooler. We queued up at the main temple entrance and it looked like it would ake an hour to get there. But midway through the queue I found myself lost in melody of the devotional music being played all around and tried to sing along as well (it was in Punjabi). It was such a soothing feeling and afterwards for the life of me I couldn't remember the wordings just when I wanted to buy a CD of the same.
After that we went for the langar, and the way things work there left me dumbfounded. It is just the perfect example of how a country should be run. Everyone contributes, no job is small, everything just gets done somehow and everyone's happy! It is said that every Sikh should devote a week from his life to do volunteer work here. There are more than a thousand people in the temple at any given time and also a lot of volunteers. And it is a seamless system. These are examples that are very hard to beat.
Saturday Night:
With everything ticked off the agenda, we were left with an entire night to just sit down and talk and have fun. Just when it started to get interesting, someone had the audacity to say "let's call it a night" and surprisingly the others followed! It could've been better but was good while it lasted.
Sunday
The journey back was mostly uneventful. It was mostly slept through by various people at various points of time (me being the first). There were light moments in between where BIG BOSS was back in action and we were promoting our new channel called Kaeda TV.
The train reached on time and 47 hours and loads of fun later I was back to home sweet home.
6 more months to go for our next trip together. Stay tuned!
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