Tag Archives: Wagah border ceremony

India, On the Road

Amritsar on the half shell

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Tony and I enjoyed Amritsar so much last fall that we decided to share it with our guests. The four of us took the train on April 1 for six hours to the state of Punjab. At the Amritsar train station, a young taxi driver approached us. Sunny gave us a ride to our hotel, and we liked him so much we hired him for our whole visit.
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At the recommendation of our school’s travel agent, we stayed at Mrs. Bhandari’s Guesthouse, which featured a pool, outdoor eating area, garden, courtyard with water buffalo and a humble collection of rooms. Liz snapped this shot of our fellow guesthouse residents.
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We checked in, grabbed a quick snack, and took off for the Wagah Border-Closing Ceremony at the Pakistan-India border, about 45 minutes out of town.

Just like our last visit, food and drink vendors lined the path approaching the stadium. I loved this papaya seller with his papaya-colored shirt and turban. Theresa got the shot.
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Sno-cones made on the spot with the Indian flag colors!
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A water boy wisely targeting the men in line. This may be the only place on the planet where the women’s line moves faster!
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After passing through VIP security, we took our seats in the Foreigners Gallery and watched the bedlam. A full Bollywood street party was followed by people actually LINING UP to run a short distance with the Indian flag.
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Great shot by Theresa:
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Eventually the hollering, high-stepping, gate-slamming, foot-stomping, thumb-gesturing, hat-straightening, mustache-twisting, anthem-singing, flag-lowering antics came to a close. I took so many pictures on our last visit. This time I just watched. Check out the Pakistani guard (black beret and shades) who Theresa photographed. You do NOT want to mess with him.
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Returning from the border ceremony, Sunny eagerly asked if we knew the story of Ganesha. I did, only because I had heard it at school during India Week. However, Sunny told the tale with such exuberance and joy that I just let him run with it. Here’s the story, fyi. (This is NOT how Sunny told it. His rendition featured generic nouns slapped with unconjugated verbs in an unintelligible but joyous English soup.) From the website religionfacts.com:

Incensed by the refusal of her husband to respect her privacy, to the extent of entering her private chambers even while she was having her bath, Parvati decided to settle matters once and for all. Before going for her bath the next time, she rubbed off the sandalwood paste on her body and out of it created the figure of a young boy. She infused life into the figure and told him he was her son and should guard the entrance while she bathed.
Soon after, Shiva (Lord of destruction and husband of Parvati) came to see Parvati but the young boy blocked his way and would not let him in. Shiva, unaware that this lad was his son, became furious and in great anger fought with this boy whose head got severed from his body in the ensuing battle. Parvati, returning from her bath, saw her headless son and threatened in her rage to destroy the heavens and the earth, so great was her sorrow.
Shiva pacified her and instructed his followers (known as ganas) to bring the head of the first living being they encounter. The first creature they encountered was an elephant. They thus cut off its head and placed it on the body of Parvati’s son and breathed life into him. Thus overjoyed, Parvati embraced her son.

Theresa took this great shot of the dashboard decor in Sunny’s car: Ganesha in a Clam Shell. I love it so much! No, I don’t know why this Hindu elephant god is resting on a mollusk, but there’s no denying that it’s awe inspiring.
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Basically re-creating our first Amritsar visit, we took Liz and Theresa to Kesar da Dhaba for dinner. Everyone seemed happy with their food, and the restaurant owner remembered me from November! We bought dinner for Sunny, who tried to have a philosophical discussion with Tony about the Sikh religion.

Liz being a BIG risk taker!
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After dinner, Sunny drove us to the Golden Temple. It was not the peaceful oasis we remembered from five months ago! It was a mob scene … a happy, spiritual, family-oriented mob scene, but a mob scene nonetheless. I was trying to take a photo of Tony and Liz in front of the temple when this family crowded in to the shot. Okayyyy.
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Another family shoved a baby into Liz’s arms, which she confusedly cuddled until the mother realized its absence and abruptly yanked it back. Craziness! I liked this calm lady who was chilling and enjoying the glowing temple.
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The next morning, Liz and Tony ventured back to the temple and the Jalianwallah Bagh Memorial. Apparently, they hung out with this guy.
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Theresa and I lazed around the guesthouse, taking photos of the colorful garden.
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For more details on the places we visited, check out my old posts about Amritsar.

On April 2, it was time to head our separate ways. Tony and Liz returned to Delhi and later took a daytrip to Agra. Theresa and I drove to McLeod Ganj, a hill station in the Himalayas and home of the exiled Dalai Lama. That story is coming up next!

India, On the Road

Wagah Border ceremony – Pakistan and India say “good night”

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After grumbling about working on Thanksgiving, I happily got home from school that evening and packed a bag for our weekend excursion to Amritsar. Located about 260 miles northwest of Delhi in the state of Punjab, Amritsar is the spiritual center of the Sikh religion. It’s also just a short drive from Wagah, a village that was split in 1947 with the end of British rule. Independence brought Partition, so the eastern half of Wagah went to India, and the western half to Pakistan.

Wagah is now home to the main road border crossing between the two countries and an unusual ceremony that has closed the border each night since 1959. The Border Security Force of India and the Pakistan Rangers engage in a series of choreographed marching, foot-stomping, high-kicking, head-wobbling, thumb-gesturing bravado before lowering the Pakistani and Indian flags in perfect unison, shaking hands and shutting the gates.

Shortly after checking in to our hotel in Amritsar, we hired a taxi to the border. Our driver dropped us off, pointed us in the right direction and told us to meet him at that same spot after the ceremony. We joined the throng on a road lined with vendors selling snacks and souvenirs. At the security checkpoint, we ladies breezed through and watched Tony slowly ebb forward with the sea of men until he finally emerged for his pat-down by a camouflage-clad guard. We passed through another security area set up for VIP foreign passport holders that spat us out at the “Foreigners Gallery.” Among the VIPs were several other teachers from our school!

Crowds on both sides of the border filled the stands, shouting nationalistic slogans and waving the flags for their respective countries. In India, an image of Gandhi overlooked the pre-ceremony revelry that included energetic dancing to Bollywood tunes and cheers of “Hin-du-stan!” Just a few yards away in Pakistan, the country’s first governor-general, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, watched Muslim spectators divided into gender-specific sections, alternately chanting “Pak-i-stan!” and playing Koranic verses.

We couldn’t see the goings-on in Pakistan very well. However, the Indian activities were perplexing enough to keep us riveted. First, two female guards marched dramatically from the staging area to the gate. Next, several guards lined up at a microphone. One at a time, they took a deep breath and then hollered what sounded like, “Goooaalll!” in an apparent competition to stretch it out the longest. Eventually, they all marched (a bit out of sync) to the gate and back, stomped a bit, led the crowd in more cheering and ultimately opened and closed the Indian gate a few times. I assume the Pakistani guards were putting on their own version of the show until they opened their gate. (Note to other countries considering this type of ceremony: The Pakistani gate slides open, which is much more dramatic than the Indian gates, which swing open from the middle.) When both gates were open and the guards had faced off with some clomping and shaking of their pleated headwear, they took the ropes from the flagpoles and simultaneously lowered the Pakistani and Indian flags. Flags folded and carried away, a guard and a ranger exchanged a quick handshake and a smile before slamming the gates for the night.

According to news reports, the confrontational ceremony was toned down starting last year to reflect the desire for better relations between the two neighbors. The vibe on our side was definitely one of pride and giddiness more than anger, but who knows what tensions rippled below the surface and beyond the gate?

I had hoped to pose with the guards following the ceremony but the surge of Indians with the same plan dissuaded me. Instead, I snapped a few shots of the rapturous crowd and made a quick escape.

Here’s a video of our experience at the Wagah border.

Here’s some old BBC footage featuring Michael Palin on the Pakistan side of the gate. Much nicer production quality than mine!

Ironically, Michael Palin also starred in the Monty Python sketch, “The Ministry of Silly Walks,” which I’ll post here just to amuse myself. (Another teacher pointed out the irony!)