Chak de phatte!

21 Mar 2011 6 Comments

by Sindhu Murthy in Vacations

Every time my folks (family, friends and foes) from Bangalore chat with me, their almost first question is whether I have visited the places in and around Delhi. The usual suspects are Jaipur, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Amritsar, Shimla and if interested, please also include the other potential places in the stretch that can go into the have-you-been-there-yet list of places. Most of us down South are deluded about the distances between the North Indian places and believe that they are all fairly close and the distances, pretty minimal. Arrey, just the way people up North believe that everything beyond Madhya Pradesh is Madras, that Bangalore and Hyderabad are neighbours, while Kerala is in the backyard of Chennai! Ok, fair enough.

Deluded that Amritsar is close to Delhi, we set out on a weekend, bags packed and clinging onto immense hope of reaching maybe 5-6 hours hence. We drove past several familiar Punjabi towns of Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Panipat, Sonipat, Karnal, Ambala (certainly not in the same order), while whiffing in the fresh air of green farmlands on both sides of the roads. We were tempted to stop by, run through the fields, let our hair fly wild and sing ‘Tujhe Dekha to ye Jaana Sanam…’ to one another but decided to drop these gorgeous ideas and keep driving instead, since the Golden Temple Town was still, several miles away. We reserved our appetite for the hot, steamy, buttery parathas and masala chais on the highway and promptly pulled over at regular four hour intervals. Three four-hour-intervals later, we were still driving. Who knew that the highways of Jalandhar and Ludhiana were crammed with bubbly, cheerful truck and lorry drivers waving animatedly at passers-by. The burgeoning traffic on the Balle-Balle land was beginning to tire us. But we were never tired of stopping over for yet another lip-smacking session of fattening butter parathas with thick, rock hard yog hurt and juicy spiced pickle. If anything, we’ve lapped up every kind of paratha dished out on the highways, leading to Amritsar, with the alibi of breaking from the tedious drive. The Xylo too couldn’t cushion us too well through what seemed like a never-ending drive. Lesson therefore learnt: Underestimating distances on the map can be fattening. Remember, places are as far as they are made to seem close to one another.

What started at 430am wound up at 8pm at a comfortable hotel in Amritsar. Having finally arrived, we wanted to sleep. NOT! Downed another barrel of chai, splashed some ice cold water on the dead beat faces and headed straight to the Temple of Goldenness. Most of us first timers had long prepared to submit ourselves to the awestriking Golden structure. It certainly was arresting, boldly glistening in the moonlit night and reverberating with chants, like divinity thickly enveloped it. Wahe Guru! Wahe Gur, Sat Naam, Wahe Guru!

The Golden glow rapt warm in our vision, we slept a short night. A quick morning breakfast here and a mad rush at the temple there – after scuttling around the temple for a bit and clicking every possible temple pose, we promised to make it back in time to Delhi by night. Oh, oh, only after a quick whizz around Jalianwala Bagh. It’s been spoken about so much that when you are putting both your feet on the very ground of the bloody massacre, your history teachers pop up in your head and the dramatic bloody movies flood your sight. The experience was more sensual than physical. It was almost like one could be startled by the firing in the air, hear the pain-ridden cries, see the blood around and walk amidst the tireless bodies lying around, even today! The bottomless well and the gunshot-marked wall were piercing visuals – alive and untouched, like an eternal testimony.

The next most significant thing to achieve before heading back home was indeed the Wagah Border. We made it just in time for the ceremony of ‘lowering the flags’. In groups of women and men separately, we queued up to the open air amphitheatre and seated ourselves in the pandemonium. The go-getters grabbed the front seats while people like me got hushed into the spare corners. It was a regular Sunday. What transpired across the gates didn’t seem regular, not to someone who was witnessing this mania for the first time. Slogans, songs, dance, shout-outs and counterparts on resounded thunderously on either side. For a very filmy drama queen who is most definitely a fan of Shah Rukh Khan, movies like Veer Zara gushing into the head seemed natural. The mass euphoria only aggravated such impulses. Tere liye… hum hai jiye, har aasoon ko piye… Dil mein magar jalti rahe… chaahat ke diye!!

Like being abruptly broken from a hauntingly recurring dream, we had to rush back home to Delhi, before it tired us too much to drive back. We stopped by a couple of Havelis for tea and dinner breaks. Early into Monday morning dawn, we were in the middle of Connaught Place, close enough to our cushiony lives in Vasant Kunj. Like a movie just scripted, this sojourn gave rise to numerous discussions and interpretations about the history and geography of Amritsar and Wagah Border… until the next trip was planned and a promise made, to perhaps satiate the urge to relive some remains of history told, retold, some untold and many unheard.

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