The myth lives on ....

I have no idea whats happening with the ppl of ‘days’ and very frankly I no longer care. Last week I was in Punjab. I loved Punjabi food.. sorry, love. Amritsar and Ludhiana, hence, always offered a great chance for me to satiate my hunger for good Punjabi food. I did not disappoint myself. Chole bhature, parathe, kulche, lassi, more bhautres, chicken butter masala, alu ki tikki, more lassi - I had ‘em all. And all this was just the start to a wonderful three days in Punjab. For once, I saw this surd cop in his bike and when he crossed me saw his number plate – “Notorious Gill PB 02 xxxx” (cant risk giving away the reg number of the notorious gill .. u kno).

The highlights, however, of my stay were two :

1) Golden temple: I normally love to be around sardars. They have a great sense of humor, which is sometimes, sometimes, sometimes highly accentuated by their awesome sense of stupidity as well. They are so stupid at times that I am sure that they do it deliberately. To them, the lesser mortals would probably never know that! And of course, I always associate sardars with the innumerous santa-banta jokes and the bachpan ka ‘barah baj gaya’ thing. Always a myth.. I knew it, cos this Sehgal dude always took exams in school and was hell smarter than me. He never wrote smthing like ‘bole tara ra ra’ in the answer sheet ryt at 12 o clock or smthing.
So .. I was at this temple/gurudwara and its really a beautiful place. There are volunteers at the temple who give u water and u can just sit/sleep around the pool, chill.. u know just relax. Nobody gives a shit abt u and although its pretty crowed, its peaceful enough. I, after walkin arnd temple for an hr or so, went inside to chk out what actually happens inside the golden building. They sing and pray, like in all religions and there was something very nice and calm abt the entire thing. i had just one problem though. I was the only non sardar dude inside the temple and I was suddenly feelin claustrophobic around so many turban headed ppl. I went upto the first floor and checked the time. it was 11:57 and I chuckled to myself imagining what would happen if the myth wasn’t actually a myth. I saw them , seated and singing happily like a nice closely knit Punjabi family, and went up to the second floor. All of a sudden .. and I mean ALL OF A SUDDEN… all of them just stood up and the singing stopped!! I also stopped exactly where I was and realized that suddenly there was a protocol…. U stand where u are and don’t move! It was 12!!! Then the lead singer from the ground floor started praying and everybody listened. After about every 3 min we all did a “wahe guru” twice and continued to stand and listen for the next 15 min or so. When it got over, all of them sat down again and I got my non Punjabi ass out of there… happy that the myth had almost come true, but hadn’t!

2) Wagah border: for the first time in my life, I wished I had a bomb!