Amritsar – Part I

We landed at Amritsar on June 17^th at about 1PM. We checked in the hotel and realized the one of our bags were exchanged with some other passenger. I was checking our tags to find out which tag was missing, when Indigo officials contacted us and gave contact number of the person with whom our bag got exchanged. We had opened the bag to find the contents and saw that the bag had all the baby stuffs like diaper, milk, child clothes etc. We were not as much worried now about our bag as it contained only eatables but worried more for their bag because we thought that the kid would suffer and so the family too. We immediately contacted them. However, Mittals ( the other passenger in this exchange ) were smart enough to carry some extra stuff in a separate bag with them so they were cool and chilled out. Mr. Mittal suggested to exchange the same in the evening / night, as they were already on the way to Wagha Border.

We freshened up and came out to head for Wagha Border. Our Driver Suggested to Have lunch on the way instead of the city. We agreed as we saw logic in Jang Bahadur’s Logic. What a name, we thought. His parents though gave him this name as he was born after the war ( Jang in Punjabi ) with Pakistan. I said to myself “ Simple people – simple thoughts “. We stopped over at Balle Balle Dhaba for lunch. This name too sounded funny and weird. That is Punjab – Rustic & simple straight forward. We had Lacche de paranthe with panner vegetable and lassi. The Paneer rarely taste so fresh & soft in hotels here in Mumbai or Pune.

We reached the border at about 3.30 PM. A couple of guys gheraoed ( no better word in English ) us. They all had paint and brush in their hands. They wanted to put the tricolor on our hands. The patriot in me was lured by the idea. Immediately a tricolor was on my left hand in less than 3 minutes, I had to shell out Rs.40 for it. I felt my engineering degree never gave me such returns.

We walked up to the gate and felt that we were well in time to get some vintage seats. We were in for a shocker though. We all were used to the crowds on Churchgate / VT during the rush hours, or probably coming out from Wankhede stadium but the crowd at the border took our breath out. There were separate queues for ladies and gents. Somehow Uday Kaka & I managed to get in to the main arena and hoped to see ladies in our group sooner or later. It was not to be. Poor Ladies saw the entrance door slammed on their face as they got there. Poor Ladies!! They had to console themselves by seeing the function on the large screen hung outside for such visitors. Nothing could have been so frustrating after travelling 1000 miles for only a few such places in Amritsar. They braved it out standing for 3 ½ hours and greeted us jealously as we came out at about 7 PM. We were really sorry to hear their saga. We all laughed it out had tea and headed for the Golden temple.

Rest in part II including the Exchanged Bag story.