If you are curious about the reason, me penning down this post about a trip that I took nearly 6 months ago? No worries, I can completely answer it all in a couple of points.
- I am a master procrastinator.
- I love to get nostalgic.
There had been several inspirations behind my trips such as Friends, Food, Nature and Adventure. But, what if the main inspiration for this trip is a song from a movie that got released way back in 2006.
Yes, ever since I saw the movie Rang De Basanti, visiting Amritsar has become a dream. Unfortunately, my multiple plans to visit Amritsar never realized until this trip. Initially, I intended to travel solo. But, later chose to go with a bunch of friends. Isn’t more the merrier Firstly, let me introduce you the gang. Shashi, Remya, Kavinnila, Shalini and yours truly.
Day 1: 27th Mar 2018
As planned, all of us assembled in Chennai Airport to board our flight. As we were all a bit early, it was perfect to catch up over some food and coffee. Around 8 pm, we boarded the Indigo destined for Delhi. The flight wasn’t a long one, so we reached our destination Delhi by 12 am. We had to spend our night at the airport as our train to the next stop was scheduled to depart the next day morning. We killed most of the time conversing diverse topics over Momos, Tea and some occasional walk around the Airport. Finally, I felt a lot of excitement burst into me when the dawn broke.
Day 2: 28th Mar 2018
Early in the morning, we took a metro to the New Delhi Railway Station. From there, we boarded SWARNA SHATABDI around 7.30 am, our train to Amritsar. To my relief, they served us Tea and Breakfast on the train. We were expected to reach Amritsar by 1.40 pm, but the train got delayed and arrived around 3 pm only. That almost put us on the verge of spoiling the entire plan for the rest of our day.
You can call it all luck, and there is always someone for the rescue when in trouble. This time it’s an auto driver whom we hired to drop us at the hostel from the railway station. My bad, I even forgot his name. After hearing me stressed up and discussing options to reach our next destination on time, he came forward and offered to take us to Attari – Wagah Border and back at quite a nominal price. That’s so kind of him.
Yeah, you read it right. How come I come all the way to Amritsar and miss the beating retreat ceremony at Wagah border. Even watching it on TV or YouTube would give me goosebumps. Our initial plan was to go to the hostel, drop our bags and immediately start to Wagah. But, few of us prioritized taking a shower and getting freshened up. That pissed me off as we had a short window of time. Considering the usual crowd there, we had a high probability of denying entry.
Our Auto Anna drove awesome that day. He was swift on the road overtaking other vehicles. It was such a nail-biting moment. Finally, we reached the border entry almost on time. Shashi chose to stay back as he had a business call to take care. We ran to the security check area so that we could secure a spot. As the ques are different for men and the woman, I lost track of my friends. All my efforts to search and reach them went in vain. Even the calls didn’t connect due to no cellular network. Just hoping that they were safe, I continued to the stands to witness the ceremony. The following is the excerpt from Wikipedia about the ceremony.
The ceremony starts with a blustering parade by the soldiers from both sides and ends up in the perfectly coordinated lowering of the two nations’ flags. As the sun sets, the iron gates at the border are opened and the two flags are lowered simultaneously. The flags are folded and the ceremony ends with a retreat that involves a brusque handshake between soldiers from either side, followed by the closing of the gates again.
Amidst a large crowd, I somehow secured a spot at the bottom-most level of the stand. Continuous slogans such as “Jai Hind” & “Vande Mataram” and playing of patriotic songs made my blood rise and beam with patriotism and pride. One must be there to experience the intense energy around. Then started the actual ceremony and our Border Security Force put out a spectacular show. They marched with Pride, Patriotism, and Aggression. India would easily outrun Pakistan when it comes to cheering for their soldiers at the ceremony. While trying to click some pics, I got stamped in the crowd. Luckily a woman BFS officer came to my rescue and lifted me up. My sincere thanks to her. It was such an electrifying atmosphere. I am currently in the deficit of words in expressing the same. Finally, the ceremony got over with the flags lowered on both the sides and it’s unquestionably one of the experiences of the lifetime.
Then again I resumed my search for my friends. I had to move away from the border gates to gain some signal and contact my friends. Finally, after a few calls and text messages, we got united. Phew, what a relief to know that they were all safe. We were all super hungry as we skipped our lunch in a rush to get here on time. So we temporarily filled our stomach with some Aalo Tikki and Pani Poories.
Our Auto Anna was awesome. He stopped by a lush wheat field to click some pics. He even took us to a nice Dhaba that served yummy Rottis, Naans and Butter Chicken for dinner.
Post dinner, we were finally back to our hostel. All we wanted was to rest after quite a long day. As always life had a twist for us, but there was both good and bad in it. The bad part is, the dorms got double booked due to some software glitch and got allocated to the other foreign guests. Now the good part, We were provided dorms at a hostel quite near to the Golden Temple and got transported there free of cost too.
That’s how an awesome day came to an end.
I am concluding here, as our next place deserves a dedicated blog post.
To Be Continued …
Gokoulane Ravi 
That really was a helluva trip 🙂
Pingback: The Golden Temple Saga – Trip To Remember – Amritsar, Delhi & Agra – Part 2 | Gokoulane Ravi
Pingback: Thank You 2018 Welcome 2019 | Gokoulane Ravi
Pingback: Trip To Remember – Amritsar, Delhi & Agra – Part 3 | Gokoulane Ravi
Pingback: Trip To Remember – Amritsar, Delhi & Agra – Part 4 | Gokoulane Ravi
Pingback: Trip To Remember – The Valley Of Flowers Trek – Part 1 | Gokoulane Ravi