Trip to Amritsar

As I met Manali the night when she was so fond of traveling and wished to go to Amritsar, it was inevitable for me to not to stop thinking about the trip as Amritsar was a place I wanted to visit or you can say the expedition to the golden temple was a delight for me as well.

After dinner we used to have a night walk for about 15-20 minutes in front of the homes where we used to stay, then one evening I met Manali and told her I got the tickets for Amritsar for myself and my sir from my lab, and we have our train tomorrow at 5 pm.

Like that day I was in the INST mess for the regular meal, I saw Manali having her food and smiling, so I decided to tell her about the train and to catch the train we need to leave our houses by 4:30. We left our homes at sharp 4:30, and I called the cab in front of the institute.

After we 3 went to start our journey, we met an exciting cab driver who offered us some almonds and tried to fool us by telling us we won't be able to catch the train. We are too much late, he said, on a good note we were happy to meet this pleasant and calm minded driver as he told you're never going to forget me and neither had I forgotten him. On reaching the Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar railway station, we met many people asking which platform the train for Amritsar is going to come. To our surprise the train came a bit early than expected and when we started searching our bogie, the train started to leave, to that Manali ran and catched the bogie which was close to her and Pooja and I ran to the door of the bogie which was ours.

On the train, it was a fantastic ride of 3-4 hours to Amritsar, and I sat beside Pooja and talked her about her musical interests and her life. She had a cute smile as innocent as a kid. When we reached Amritsar, Pooja's grandmother and uncle came to pick her up from the station, and Manali and I started searching for Auto or cabs to go to Pooja's home as it was in Chaura bazaar she told us to come to her house to give her a visit.

As we didn't have any place to stay in Amritsar, I decided to leave Manali at her house for the night, and the next day we'll travel to the golden temple. Reaching Pooja's house, we met her grandmother and two little kids. Her aunt gave us some dinner, and then I decided to go to the golden temple. To my amazement, I saw a golden temple bustling with a lot of people, and I also found that the temple remains open for the whole night. There are a lot of people who stay inside the gurudwara with all the facilities of dinner and breakfast. So, i decided to call Manali to the temple to which she replied she was not liking inside the house and wanted to come to the temple. So, I went back to her home to pick up Manali. When I reached her home, I met some people who decided to give me their scooter and to drop us to the temple as no autos were running at that time as it was 11:30 in the night. The moment I pointed Pooja's home to those men, they got enraged and refused to give the scooter, and luckily an auto came, and we sat in it and went to the golden temple. To my surprise, I told Manali, why were those men started getting angry when I pointed Pooja's house. Then we went to roam inside the temple. To my astonishment, that was the most beautiful temple I've seen in my life with so much lighting and people around. For getting the entry inside the temple we needed to deposit our bags and shoes on a counter. After that, we wore the scarf over our heads, washed our legs to enter inside the temple.

As soon as i entered inside the temple, the song name "Rab ne Bana di jodi" started playing in my head and seeing Manali and the temple at the same time was the best moment in my life, with water glittering with lights and fishes inside the water, it was beautiful.

Then we went to drink the water and take some rest in the gurudwara, after that to my excitement I saw many people taking a bath in the water near the golden temple to that I said to Manali, i never miss such opportunities and took out my clothes and jumped to take a swim in the water. The water was amazingly cold and then Manali took some pictures of me inside the water. It was so so delightful.

After that, we decided to sit near the water for some minutes and then I went to change. While I was changing she messaged me to reach to the place where people gathered, and as my phone was low on charge, I read the message and started to find her, to my surprise I met her near the water itself and the moment I saw her I felt such a sigh of relief. Then we continued to visit the temple. As soon as we reached the gates of the temple, we saw a lot of people struggling to get inside the temple by forming the queue, and I asked Manali what if we get lost how we'll contact each other to that she told me to memorize her phone number. For standing in the long queue for around 2 hours, clicking pictures, posing, and talking, finally, we reached the entrance of the temple. It was so unreal, and you could see the gate made up of gold.

When we entered the temple, there was a place where the worshippers ask for a wish by bowing down on the floor.

After that we went to the first floor of the temple where the view of the water was so mesmerizing, we clicked each other's pictures, and it was so amazing. Finally, we reached the top of the temple where we could see were many pilgrims sitting on the end, all with the ray of hope in their eyes. It was around 4 in the morning. After that, we decided to sit for some minutes and look to the moon over the golden temple. It looked so heavenly.

I clicked some pictures of the temple and us. We weren't even tired a bit, but still, we needed rest. So, Manali and I went to the place where people were sleeping. I asked Manali to sleep, to which she replied she wants to sleep under the fan. So she went to sleep to someplace under the fan, and I slept there itself.

I woke up to the sound of people at around 6:30 and went to find Manali. She was awake, and I went to her. She told me we need to have breakfast, and she wanted to visit some other places in the temple as well. With so little sleep that night, my legs hurt too much, and when I sat beside Manali, all the pain went away. We talked about the previous night and about the journey this far. After we were fresh, we went for breakfast, where they had chai, roti, and bread.

As we were revisiting the temple in the morning, we could see a lot of people worshipping and a lot of men in blue dresses with swords.

Manali asked to take pictures of hers and wanted me to pose the titanic pose, and we clicked our photos in front of the temple, and despite such a beautiful ambiance, we decided to leave the temple at around 8:30 to visit more places in Amritsar.

After getting out of the temple, we need to take a bath, so I told Manali a place where she could go, and I went to charge my phone.

I got a call by Manali, where she asked to come inside the hotel I told her about, she talked to them and got the room for bathing purpose.

She managed to book the room for bathing very cheaply, and she went to take a bath.

The view of the town from that floor was utterly magical. I could see an old city of the early nineties with people bustling with their morning rituals.

I got some ice from downstairs as my leg was hurting too much. I started applying ice on the hurt area. After some extent I saw Manali coming out of the room, she was a pure goddess in black and black color suits her so well, I could never forget her look that day.

She was so fresh as ever and so magical I could even see river flowing and birds chirping when I look at her, she was carrying that ambiance.

She asked me to have a bath, and then we left the room as soon as we can.

Our first adventure after that was to Jallianwala bagh that was just beside that room, and We took many selfies on the gate of that Jaliawala bagh and inside the gully where general Dyer ordered his troops for the massive killing of the innocent in the garden.

After traveling inside the garden filled with so much greenery that who would've thought that such type of massacre had taken place at this beautiful place 100 years ago.

On the walls of those buildings, we could still see the signs of bullet marks such an act of cruelty where around 200-300 we killed, and many of them jumped inside the wells, which has been preserved inside the big cage for the tourists to see.

After visiting the wells and the garden, we decided to sit and have a bit rest.

I asked Manali whether she wanted to go to Mohali today itself? She said she had an important meeting on Monday, so I decided to take the returning ticket on that day itself in the evening. It was around 9:30 when I got the ticket for Mohali, and we had seven more hours to visit more places in Amritsar.

We then left the Jaliwalah bagh to go to have some breakfast. Manali always wanted to try Amritsari kulcha, and it was a famous dish of Amritsar, so we decided to give it a try.

We went to the restaurant, had Amritsari kulcha and cold Lassi for our breakfast. There was a lot to shop and buy the famous Amritsari things from the market, so we decide to do a bit shopping. She wanted to purchase scarfs, jutties, and symbols, and shrines for the memory of this place.

First, she bought chunnis, scarfs for her and then we went to the famous jutti shop in Amritsar.

After shopping, we wanted to visit the Wagha border that is a border between India and Pakistan, which was about 35 km from the temple.

We had an option to go by bus, but it was not on time, and we had less time in our hands, so we decided to take other means.

The weather was a bit hot that day, and she was not so comfortable walking and got agitated by the sun.

In the middle of our journey, we stopped at a place where the Wagha border was around 20 km. We started searching for some means to travel that remaining distance. After waiting for a few minutes, we got an auto who agreed to go to the Wagha border. In between the Wagah border, we saw many places like the sadda pind and the historical museum. During the journey, Manali started feeling sleepy, and she slept on my shoulders, and that was so memorable for me. After the tour of around 1 hour, we reached the Wagha border, and the function starts at 5:00 pm, but we had our train, so we decided to visit the place, take some pictures and come back.

As soon as we reached, there met a kid who made an Indian flag on our faces. Manali wanted to rest, so she sat in a restaurant, and we decided to eat something. After that, I told the auto driver that we'd be visiting the border and look at the border from the outside and come as we had a train to catch that evening.