The Amritsar Reloaded !!

In the winters of 2010, I got a chance to revisit a beautiful city popularly known as the "Golden City" not only for the great structure of "Golden Temple" in heart of the city but the prosperity of its residents in all the way.

Yes, This is Amritsar, the Golden City (most Punjabi call it 'Ambarsar'...no idea why they call it so..).

The meaning of Amritsar is "The Pool Of Immortality" which refers to a sacred pond in the vicinity of an ancient temple "Gurudwara Harmandir Sahib". This place is immensely popular among the Sikh devotees from all over the world.

A Magnificent View of Gurudwara Harmandir Sahib, Amritsar

The journey to this beautiful place started from the capital of India, New Delhi.
I was accompanied by my dear friend Unmesh and we boarded the famous Golden Temple Mail (its famous not because we boarded it but it is the oldest running train route in India previously known as Frontier Mail).

Although the weather was cold but the warmth of curiosity to see a new place kept those wintry waves away from us.

We were carrying our luck as usual and train was absolutely dry and full of boring people so we thought to conserve our energies for the next day which may bring some charm in our one day sojourn at Amritsar.

Amritsar Railway Station

On the next day, Golden Temple Mail touched the platform of Amritsar in early morning.

Amritsar railway station is an example of typical old indian railway station having the pre-independence style architecture.

It was bitter cold as we stepped out of the bogie.

Soon we got a stall and had a cup of tea. Its true that real taste of tea comes in the shivering cold.

Outside the station, we met one Sardar ji Mr. Monu who owned an auto-rickshaw and assured us for a smooth day out at Amritsar.

Although Mr. Monu ji told us the option of having closed taxi but auto-rickshaw has its own charm while moving in a new city. It provides a wider look of your surrounding while moving through the streets.

Deal Finalized !! and we were in the open auto-rickshaw and very soon, that charm faded away by cold waves of Punjab.
He helped us to find a good lodging and explained us the travel plan for the day.

Golden Statue of Mata Lal Devi at Rani ka Bagh

We started our day with a small visit to Mata Lal Devi Mandir which was built after holy efforts from Mata Lal Devi, a spectacled 20th century female saint.

This temple is situated at Rani ka Bagh area of Amritsar and is developed along the lines of the famous Vaishno Devi temple of Jammu. This temple has a series of vivid shrines and grottoes.


We liked the beautiful interior of the temple which was based on colorful glasses It was absolutely amazing and almost all colors were used in decorating the temple walls.


All the idols were decorated with beautiful golden ornaments and fresh flowers. The best part of the temple was that it was maintained very nicely and the floor was covered with mats so that the visitors can save their feet from extremely cold tiles;





After spending sometime in this beautiful temple, we were ready to take off for our next destination; and it was the Durgiana Temple also known as Laxmi Narayan Temple.

A Scenic View of Durgiana Temple

This temple's name was derived from the Hindu Goddess Mata Durga. The temple is surrounded by a beautiful artificial lake giving it a resemblance of the Golden temple.

Inside the temple, there were intricately carved paintings of goddess Durga in her various incarnations.


There were two old more old temples in the Durgiana temple complex; Mata Sita temple & Hanumanji temple.

There was a very big metal bell inside the temple having a radius of approximately 1 meter. It was producing a heavy sound which was echoing back from the old temple walls.

The temple complex has a big commercial sub-area and most of the area is occupied by restaurants; remaining shops sell goddess idols and other religious stuff.


After seeing the preparation of mouth-watering Chhole-Kulche in the durgiana temple complex, we felt a strong urge to eat some nice food. As Amritsar is the heart of Punjab and Punjab is known for its food, we wanted to taste the real punjabi cuisines.

Mr. Monu helped us in this and suggested a very nice place "Bhai Kulwant singh Kulche Wala" which was in vicinity of the Jalianwala bagh, our next destination.

The famous Bhai Kulwant Singh Kulchian wala Dhaba

Soon our Auto-rick landed in the Hot Area of Amritsar and we reached in front of the "Bhai Kulwant Singh....."

The shop appeared very old and small and having antique furniture. There were only 4 tables in the shop and it had open furnace which was getting used to prepare the hot and fresh Kulchas.

There were lots of varieties of Kulchas at very nominal prices. We ordered for Aloo and Gobi Kulchas..
Wowww !! It was a mouth-watering dish.
It was such a soft and delicious Kulchaa served with typical tomato-dhaniya chatni; I never had such a nice punjabi kulchas.

After we had a nice breakfast, we stepped into the land of Martyrs. Yes, I am talking about the historical garden "Jalianwala Bagh".
 

Jalianwala Bagh is a garden where British Indian Army soldiers opened up fire upon an unarmed gathering on the occasion of Baisakhi festival (April 13, 1919). The helpless mob tried to save themselves either by climbing up the surrounding walls or jumping into the nearby well. All efforts went into vain and more than 300 innocent civilians lost their lives.
This incident has triggered a new breath into the Indian independence movement. A lot of youngsters came up to protest against the cruel and  dehumanized English government.

We entered the compound through a very small passage(This is the only entry or exit point for the garden which was captured by English soldiers on the day of Jalianwala Massacre and hence people couldn't escape out).

There we saw the historic Martyr's well, the Jalianwala Bagh Memorial and lots of bullet marks on the surrounding walls.
The bullet marks are still preserved by metallic fencing and can be identified very easily. The Authority managed to develop one museum which contains pre-independence newspaper cuttings and pictures showing important documents and torture style of english soldiers. A lot can be said about this place but I will say only two words "Inquilab Zindabad"

Jalianwala Bagh, Golden Temple,  Wagah Border.........

......Lots more coming up....

Visit to Pushkar

Pushkar is a holy city situated in Ajmer district of Rajasthan. Only place on earth which has a Brahma temple. City has a beautiful lake named "Brahma Sarovar" and surrounded by the Arawali ranges.

Purpose of visit was to attend a marriage ceremony of a dear friend Rahul Sihag.

So 'Four Guys of BRCM' met at Gurgaon. Initially we planned to visit the place by bus but due to some reasons, we decided to execute a daring journey of around 700Km by Car.

We started for Pushkar at 11:00 morning from Gurgaon. A long and traffic-prone national highway was waiting for the 'modern era gladiator' Ankur. Vikas was not feeling well in the first half of journey because of last 'furious' night but he managed to recover later. Rakesh was the most excited person and eagerly looking for something, must be 'neermrana ka kila' aur 'haryana ka border'.

I was on the back seat and was listening 'Haryanvi language' which I was missing from so many days.

Our first stop was for dude 'Raka' who was feeling thirsty and we got some water bottles and cans from a roadside shop. Raka was now fit to sit.

Journey began with a stroke was now converting into long sitting hours.

Next stop was very short and full of shots. Cameras flicked at their speed and we got a nice shoot at the National Highway backed by hills. Raka's black lenses raised the excitement of many children of surrounding villages. Now commander 'Vikas' was incharge of our 'flight' after recovering from last night's injuries.

We managed to reach Jaipur in the evening and I was not feeling comfortable after sitting continuously for four hours. I urged guys to stop at some good hotel and they didn't mind after they understood the situation.

We stopped at 'Mirchi hotel', Modinagar Jaipur. There we had a quick and south-indian lunch. We were planning to have a halt at 'Chokhi Dhaani' of Jaipur but Rahul forced us to come straight to Pushkar. Debates left 'Chokhi Dhaani' back and we were on the best road of our journey, the Jaipur-Ajmer national highway cum expressway.

Jaipur-Ajmer express way is a 8-lane partitioned road. It was a great scene of Arawalis in yellow light of the Sun. Cameras flicked again and we captured few moments from running car. In such an exciting phase of journey, Vikas was still sleeping on the back seat.

We were planning to have a nice cup of tea and soon we got our next destination as we saw a 'Cafe Coffee Day 25Km Ahead' sign board.

Obviously next stop was Cafe Coffee Day at Jaipur Ajmer express way. It must be one of the best location and the situation to have a CCD punch. We waited for the coffee by looking the natural beauty surrounding this place. This was a great time to spent with friends. After spending almost 30 minutes at this beautiful place, we resumed the journey to our destination but before that Cameras paid again.

After travelling nearly 2 hours, we reached Ajmer. The city was looking awesome and we had a nice glimpse of illuminating hills. Ankur took some correct and steep turns and finally we were in the holy city of Pushkar which is not far from Ajmer.

After reaching the Marriage venue which was full of lights and enthusiasm, We met Rahul and congratulated him on this wonderful occasion.

We also met two other dudes Moodi and Dudi. We participated in the marriage ceremony, had a bhangra dance on two separate tunes at same time. This was a crucial test of anyone's dancing skills and we reached bride's place after following our choreo-man Rakas' moves.

We left the 'Dhukaav' venue for the dinner. Soon we were back in the reels on the occasion of 'Varmaala'. We were desperately missing some gift to fill our empty hands on the stage but hope Rahul didnt mind this mistake.

Rahul welcomed Bhabhiji on the stage and they exchanged 'maala' in the presence of their friends and relatives. These days Varmala ceremony is mainly kept for capturing the photos of relatives giving their wishes to the couple. Looks like Rahul was not feeling comfortable in front of a big crowd. A Young crowd was dancing to latest tunes of a Sardar's DJ.

Vermaala ceremony went very well.

Soon we were searching for the location where we can have undisturbed sleep and we found that. We got a corner in a big hall. Before sleep, we had a small chat with Moody and Dudy. Both guys left for their hometown in the midnight only.

Morning was full of energy as sunlight coming past the hills were showing the beauty of Pushkar city which was invisible in the dark night.
We had a quick bath at the Dharamshala and went for breakfast. Raka and Vikas didn't consider it worth to have a bath in such a chilly morning which was not so chilly. We went to attend 'sauthni' ceremony where Rahul went through the phase where the rate of earnings per hour will be highest throughout his life.

Now we were ready for a return journey of approximately 350 kilometers long. Here Vikas left us to catch the Baraat bus which was going back to his hometown.

So '3 man army' shoot for the journey. But before leaving Pushkar, we decided to look at historical and mythological sites of the city.

We hired a guide to help us to visit city temples and Brahma sarovar. He took us to Brahma sarovar. There we listen the history of Brahma temple and 'Brahma Sarovar', which proved last night Moody's theory wrong. We touched the holy water and prayed in front of the holy Sarovar and reflecting sunlight.

A Priest helped us to pray with proper rituals. As per the traditions, we visited 'Pracheen Brahma Temple' after having prayer at sarovar. This is the one and only temple in the world where priests pray the God Brahma.

One Priest told us that Pushkar was named by two words "Pusha" and "Kara". "Pusha" means flower and "Kara" means hand. As per indian mythology, Pushkar was formed when a Flower was dropped by Brahma's hand in presence of the God Vishnu.


Image: Brahma Sarovar, Pushkar (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushkar)

Priest told us that the praying at Sarovar is the only way to pray the God Brahma. Brahma Sarovar is true Brahma.

Following the steps of guide, we visited a nearby Guru Jambheshwar temple and pronounced 29 rules in front of statue of the great saint and environmentalist of fourteenth century.

We left Pushkar city around 1100 in the morning and touched express way within next one hour. I found some interesting patterns in the shapes of the Arawalis surrounding Ajmer city. Deep observation may push anyone to think the presence of energy inside these hills.

After travelling for an hour, we felt drowsiness in the cabin. Soon we were searching for our next stop.

We traced a road-side Dhaba near Kishangarh town. Hot and delicious Rajasthani dishes 'Dal Baati Churma' and 'Gatte ki Sabzi' was sensational. Taj's well-served soup cann't beat those two glasses of Lassi. We left this foodie's paradise after spending few memorable moments.

Ankur's flying hours were increasing as we were steadily progressing towards our destination, cyber city gurgaon. Far away from the driver's paradise, lots of mining was happening in the Arawalis. We stopped at another road-side dhaba for a cup of tea. Ankur was feeling tired, so we decided to halt to have some rest. After sleeping for an hour, we were ready to shoot for our destination.

Milestones were passing as we spent our time talking on various topics. Cyber-city was coming closer..