Voyage de l’Inde – I

Assalamo alaykum w.w.!

No you don’t need to be get afraid of the title … actually I was just clearing the rust off my Francais … nothing else …

So after much thinking, I thought (bad English but who cares) to share my long forgotten journey’s incidents …. Which journey … Good question well, the journey to India … my first visit to, otherwise, most commonly known as “Parosi Mulk”.

I went to India mainly to visit Qadian for Jalsa salana (Annual congregation) … and it became even more a delighted visit as huzur a.b.a was coming so it was a real blessed journey … and then it was the first jalsa I attended in 22 years of my life … and my less main and more naïve motives were to buy many saaris … bangles … and stuff … will come to that later on …. [so be happy zeee … enjoy the tour with me ]!

Our departure from Wahgah was first scheduled for 17, then to 20^th and later and finally to 23^rd … due to visa hurdles … And thank god we were permitted to cross the border on foot as by train meant covering mere 2 hour distance in 9-10 hours due to immigration and custom hurdles.

On 23^rd’s morning at around 6:30 we were all set … and left for wahgah, why so early because from our house to wahgah it’s quite a distance and even more because of the heavy fog that day … literally we were only able to see 5-6 feet ahead f the car rest was all fog … so there we had our tea and fortunately we were the first ones to get our passport back so we raced for border … remember that Baab e Azadi in films …!

What I didn’t liked at all was our side of baab e azaadi … I mean literally only few yards are green and have some flowers and stuff rest is all broken road (read it as only sand no road) … and no nothing no flowers no beautifying this and that … Please that is one major part of our country at least we can beautify it a little … immigration and customs only took half an hour and please remember I had to make my watch half hour ahead too … Indian side was better they had proper parks and flowers made with nice benches and not to forget shady trees. Even the custom lounge was proper with enough benches to accommodate some 35-50 people … (Pakistan had pre-partition sort of lounge; that made me real sad).

After Atari, there’s a small village sort of setting with some Dhaba-like hotels offering tea and stuff … so I bought some biscuits (I’m a biscuit lover and there are some very nicely made Orange biscuits by Parle I guess … loved them and ate them like hell in my 8 day trip) !

At Atari, my cousin and his family was also there … so together we hired a taxi and went off to Qadian. Roads were good and I don’t know, I felt as if Indian Punjab has less dust (a bit bongi observation but koi nahi ) … After crossing Amritsar, where my barray abba (My mother’s granddad used to work) we reached Gurdaspur and then qadian … roads were excellent and apart from all boards of shops in Gur-Mukhi there was no difference … oh yeah people wearing paghries … I mean Sikhs.

Another difference that I noted (at least in this part of Punjab, that the traffic was far less than the one in our Punjab and you won’t be witnessing Palatial houses more … as in Pakistan even if you’ll travel from Islamabad to Lahore by GT road You’ll be seeing some real nice and “decoratively made houses” ) . There we located the house where we were staying, it was a haveli … and I went marching towards ladies Jalsa gah fast, as hazur a.b.a was giving sermon … oh God! What a feeling it was … Wonderful!

In night, we wandered off for the markets there, it wasvery much like Icchra – anar kali of Lahore … small gullies and small shops … That day I took a survey that which things (of my interest are available) oh yeah … the very first day I bought some packets of “KurKuray” too … oh they are so delicious … even bought few packets back here too …!