Trip to Golden Temple (Amritsar)

Like most of the people have some short trips in there life, now I also started counting me among them after I came back from Amritsar. It was the first and I guess the last short trip of my life because I loosed the fun but to some extent, short trips are fun in there own depending on the situations, I think that must be the reason why to some extent I also enjoyed.

It was Sunday evening when I went to Gurudwara Bangla Saheb (in Delhi) with my sikh friend and as soon as we entered ardaas (evening prayer) was going on and everybody wherever they were stood there itself, so do we. I was listening to ardaas and I felt so calmness, peace of mind from inside that expressing the same in words is impossible. After the ardaas talking to my friend, he said if you go to Harmindar Saheb in Amritsar you will feel like you came in heaven and he grunted that you will never experience that thing in your life again. I think that provoked me and I asked him to come along with me and luckily he agreed but on one condition we will leave next day and day after that we leave from there, so by Wednesday we will be here.

I also agreed provided he will arrange for tickets. On this mutual agreed agreement, next day I went and opened my shop, around 3:20 pm he called me and said tickets are arranged but the train is starting somewhere at 7:15 am in morning. Usually I get up early so that was not a problem to me, I agreed and asked him to pick me up on the way to railway station tomorrow morning. Day came, he came to my house and we headed towards railway station in his scooter and parked the scooter on railway station itself as while coming back next day we will pick it up.

He booked our tickets in Swarna Shatabdi express, chair car which costed around 800/- including brokers charges. Train departed as per the schedule and breakfast/juice/soup was provided in the train itself. By 1:20 pm we reached Amritsar and immediately we headed towards gurudwara as evening we were having train back to Delhi. We left the station and took a tanga (cart which is pulled by horse), it took around 10/- each and in next 15 mins we were standing in front of Gurudwara Haraminder Sahed (also named as Golden Temple). The first view was so eye catching that I was not able to take off my eyes. We took off our shoes outside itself (there is place where we can deposit our shoes), on going inside we headed towards the rest rooms, for bath. I saw there is a building near by named “Sri Guru Ram Das Niwas” where visitors can take free rooms and live as much time as they want, there is place where lungar (free food) is served which is actually very tasty.

After taking our bath we headed towards the temple, before going inside the temple there are counters from where you can get prasad (food which is offered to god) depending on your pocket, we took 2 bowls of Prasad 51/- rupees each and before entering inside the temple, your head should be covered so I covered my head with a small piece of cloth (there is a big bucket from where you can collect the cloth and while going out drop it back so that some other can reuse it) and headed inside. As soon as I entered as said by my friend it was looking that I came in some heaven, bhajans were going on and paath (priest were going thru the holy book called guru granth sahib) was going on. People were coming, bowing there head in front of main place and giving there offerings depending on there capability. We also followed that and after doing the pooja my friend took me to a place where that holy book is kept and then after he took me to a museum named Central Sikh Museum, there I found the photographs of all the gurus, the people who gave there life for the good of Sikhism, paintings, offerings made by kings in old times, some weapons, it was eye catching.

On coming out from temple, we headed towards langar place (where free food is given in the name of god which goes 24 hrs), we went there and after some time our turn came and we sat down and soon sevadars (people who do free work there) came one by one. One came and gave empty plate, second came and gave glass, third came and gave chapattis, and soon and once the plate was full they took the name of guru and requested all to start having it. If anybody wants he can go and do free seva (work) there. It was around 5.30 when we were free and then we came out and spend our time seeing the shops near the temple and around 6:15 we went again inside the temple and sat near the sarovar (small lake inside the temple) and saw fishes inside that. Around 7 the ardaas started (same what we attended in delhi),once it was over we headed toward the langar place and had our dinner. It was 8.30 pm when we left the temple and took a rickshaw from outside the temple and headed back to railway station. Around 9:30, our train started. My friend booked the sleeper class tickets by Golden temple mail which costed us around 600/- including broker commission and around 8 am we reached delhi and picked our scooter and started back for our home. Although it was a very short trip and there are lot of places to visit in Amritsar which we missed but still I was overwhelmed with this experience.