Here we are, four hours and forty minutes later.
I got out, thrilled to be touching solid ground. Our chosen driver (not that it was within our power of choosing) seemed to degenerate as the journey continued. He drove like a mad man, downhill. I gave up trying to concentrate of the traffic – a single lane shared by goat herds, autos, trucks, cabs, pedestrians, cyclists, bull carts, and the off pot hole – and realized no matter how hard I stared, it will not change the circumstances of life.
So I closed my eyes to rest as reading was made only impossible next to trying to grind my teeth into powder form. The driver didn’t have a concept of brakes or I hoped that he serviced them not too long ago (I think not). We crossed muddy raised paths across many a raging river, broken road parts that were cushioned by pebbles and rusty motor parts that got strewn along the way. We stopped for one of the best chai I had had since arriving in India, at a dhaba that had al fresco tables dotted by flies, flies, and flies. We were again, in the middle of nowhere, just the two of us, and we felt like we were exactly where we were supposed to be at that time in life.
Our roof for the night situated us very near the Amritsar Railway Station, a powerhouse in respect of one of the most tragic locations in light of India’s coming together as an independent nation. This station saw before in the time of 1947 a massacre of both Hindu and Sikh people in the separation of Pakistan from India. Her sister station of the same fate was in current day, Lahore. Luckily for us what we saw today, was a bustling station teemed with life and activities. Lanes burst into lights, sounds, and smells when the day gave way to night. We initially wanted to check out a local beer joint to have an aperitif only to amusingly discover that stretch of bars that we thought would be it – was indeed – some rowdy joints that did not permit lady entrance. I guessed it was more for our protection? Embarrassed to be denied of entry (I had never been told I can’t enter a bar before in my 30-odd years of existence!) we took a rickshaw and headed down Albert Road towards Lawrence Road, hopes high in the air that we will find something to chill and usher into the evening. Our old uncle huffed and puffed his way down, speaking no English and trying hard to find a bar that we may like – and it was dingier that anything I had come across! Laughing at our own luck, we asked uncle to take us back to Albert Road. We tipped him well, and walked onto Queens Road to discover there was a row entirely of lively dhaba and we eventually found a nice bar that allowed both male and female patrons, aptly named “Bottoms Up”.
We sat in a quiet courtyard reminiscence of the British Raj days, and not too far away, we discovered some black and white photographs depicting the very joint, was part of an old institution: The Grand Hotel – over a century of history, being the first hotel in Amritsar, it had served the greats including Nehru and Indira Gandhi herself. Sitting in the private enclosure, we found albeit a long way, that it was not impossible to have your moment of privacy and silence to soak in a day, with only the romantic horns of the departing trains in the railway station nearby droning a mournful sigh as the evening turned dark.
Many a rickshaw man said hello to us, all bearing an assortment of colourful turban that delighted the eyes. India is where my true womanly senses take courage to dive into the mix of the rare. Go ahead, wear orange with terracotta, mix your electric blue with a dash of wheat yellow, jump into a fusion of fuchsia and lavender. India encourages you to celebrate its colourful mix of language, religion, way of life, food and dialect. A short walk back to our place in the cold breathed a refreshing wake-up call that we were again, so lucky to be exactly where we were supposed to be, and I felt personally, I was seeing India again in her beautiful, yet private moment. Many stared, there were corners of unbearable stench but I was learning to walk amongst the crazy horning, the mad mix of auto and rickshaw and beaming lights from cars that were bordering on being bullies (I even instinctively gave out a hand signal to stop a car when none seemed to give our earlier rickshaw uncle a break!) and maneuver myself deftly around uneven sidewalks, senses all checking out where we shall be exploring tomorrow night.
As India, everywhere, wakes up to the chirping of birds and honks of the traffic, India retires with the dying sounds of the remnants of today’s hustle and bustle. There is much to see in this fabulous city that had seen so much in bloodshed, rising again like a phoenix, and soldering ahead, in what had made India Herself so fantastic as she is – the tenacity to go on and smile, say hello, and make a way for yourself.
