I am going to try and be quick, because I realise my adoring fans are missing my adventures. I'm finding it hard to keep up because so much is happening on the road. I spent a few days last week in Amritsar. It is famed for its Golden Temple, home of the Sikh religion, I was told I would eat the best butter chicken there, and more alcohol is drunk in Punjab than any other Indian state. (I find it hard to believe given my experience of Gurgaon....but maybe that was the influence of us Brits?!)
It''s close to the border with Pakistan where you can go to the Attari-Wagah border closing. A parade of fun, flags and the most impressive and passionate marching I have ever witnessed. These guys really put their heart and sole into stamping their feet, and can knock out a high kick that would put the National Ballet to shame!
Roop showed us the fields, some had wheat, mustard and feed for the cows growing in them. As we walked around d the fields Sandy and Roop tried to explain the Indian game of Kabbadhi to me, and Yusuf the South African. When other of us were still non the wiser they decided the best idea was to play a a game so we could experience it for ourselves. I thought they were joking when they suggested playing, but this was one thing that was clearly not a joke. My explanation is that it’s a cross between wrestling and ‘tig’. You have 2 teams. We had 3 players on each team. One person in the attack heads towards the three defenders, has to tap one of them then return to their team within 30 seconds. The defending team member who has been tapped tries to stop the other player getting back to their own team, usually by some kind of rugby tackling, or wrestling to the floor. We played for a good half an hour and it was really fun, although I think they were playing without as much aggression as they would normally.
Back on the cart and back to the farm house for more tea and a demonstration of how loud the sound system was....a quick lesson in Bangra dancing. Roop plugged his phone into the enormous speakers and blasted out some Punjabi dance music. The silver garden chairs were stacked to one side and the coffee table was moved out side into the courtyard to give us enough room, as we were shown how to shake our hands, bend our knees and tap our feet in a traditional way.
It''s close to the border with Pakistan where you can go to the Attari-Wagah border closing. A parade of fun, flags and the most impressive and passionate marching I have ever witnessed. These guys really put their heart and sole into stamping their feet, and can knock out a high kick that would put the National Ballet to shame!
It attracts a massive crowd and feels a bit like a sporting event. You can buy popcorn, there's a guy on the loud speaker getting the crowd excited, people are dancing on the sideline, with the same things going on at the Pakistan side as well. Then the marching starts and within about 10 minutes the flag for India and flag of Pakistan have been taken down and stowed in a safe place in their respective countries, the gates between the countries are closed and the whole thing is over. Weird and wonderful.
The Golden Temple is beautiful and high lighted how little I knew about the Sikh religion......I'm still non the wiser. I sauntered round for ages taking in the sight, reading the prayers that were being displayed on the big screens in every corner, and being given free holy food, which tasted a bit like warm and sweet cous cous, but more dense...
The Hindus loved the Golden Temple so much that they built one too, exactly the same, known as the Silver Temple, but actually gold....I went to see it at night. They are remarkably similar...
However my highlight of Punjab was ‘the village experience’. Organised through Sandy, a guy working at my hostel, I went to a village 45 minutes drive outside of Amritsar to meet with one of his friends who is a farmer. There were also a South African couple at the village. From start to finish the whole thing was another surreal, but hilarious and incredible experience.
We started off by meeting the whole family. Roop was the elder son, and now in charge of running the farm. We met his mum his 2 sisters, his brother, his uncle, his father and grandfather. They were an extremely warm family, and despite language differences they joked constantly and we laughed all afternoon. We met the neighbours, one of whom is 102 and still working in the fields of the farm, advising us his good health at that age is due to continued physical labour, a vegetarian diet and the fresh air of the countryside. He may be on to something.
Warmly welcomed into the house we were given tea and snacks, vegetable pakora with a delicious sweet and spicy tamarind dipping sauce. The house was down a tiny little alley way, had a large outside courtyard, with a fire for cooking, a day bed, where a vegetable preparation was taking place, and a covered out house. There were three rooms. We only saw the inside of one which had bare stone walls, a double bed and a set of 8 silver garden chairs. There was a cabinet in the corner which had a television that reminds me of a black and white portable set mum had in the bedroom when we were kids. The final touch was an almighty sound system with 2 massive speakers, ready for pumping out some classic Punjab music later.
When we had finished the snacks we walked back up the alley to the cow shed and went out for a look round the fields on an old traditional bull cart. Whilst the farm does now have some modern machinery they keep a number of traditional methods, and continue to use things like the bull cart until they need replacing.
Roop showed us the fields, some had wheat, mustard and feed for the cows growing in them. As we walked around d the fields Sandy and Roop tried to explain the Indian game of Kabbadhi to me, and Yusuf the South African. When other of us were still non the wiser they decided the best idea was to play a a game so we could experience it for ourselves. I thought they were joking when they suggested playing, but this was one thing that was clearly not a joke. My explanation is that it’s a cross between wrestling and ‘tig’. You have 2 teams. We had 3 players on each team. One person in the attack heads towards the three defenders, has to tap one of them then return to their team within 30 seconds. The defending team member who has been tapped tries to stop the other player getting back to their own team, usually by some kind of rugby tackling, or wrestling to the floor. We played for a good half an hour and it was really fun, although I think they were playing without as much aggression as they would normally.
Back on the cart and back to the farm house for more tea and a demonstration of how loud the sound system was....a quick lesson in Bangra dancing. Roop plugged his phone into the enormous speakers and blasted out some Punjabi dance music. The silver garden chairs were stacked to one side and the coffee table was moved out side into the courtyard to give us enough room, as we were shown how to shake our hands, bend our knees and tap our feet in a traditional way.
When we were all worn out and moving back towards the garden chairs to finish our tea the next activity commenced....Roop appeared out of one of the rooms with three lengths of brightly coloured fabric, it was time to learn how to wrap a traditional turban. We were given the special occasion cloth, brightly coloured and around 6 meters in length. Every day where for around the farm is black and around 2-3 meters, and if you’re at a really special occasion or some kind of holy man you could have over 9 meters to make a massive turban and show how important you are! I think it suits me....what do you think?
Keeping the turbans on we were walked back to the cow shed, for milking time. They were in fact buffalo, not cows, and pretty big. The milk is mostly used for the family, with any extra being sold locally in the village, so milking is low tech, and still done by hand. Of course today that turned out to be our job. After a calf was used to suckle the udder and get the milk flowing we were given a quick lesson in how to milk them. I was fairly useless to start with, probably because I was pretty frightened of sitting under a cow.....but I did get a bit better. The icing on the cake was Roop insisting that I try the milk squeezed freshly from the udder, I was not quite expect g it so quickly and actually ended up with it all over my face. It tasted just like milk, but was a bit too warm for my liking!
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