Fishy Chronicles 48: Rocky Start In Amritsar

From top left, clockwise: a view from a hotel room with a window; a street near the temple; the Golden Temple complex; the dome of the Akal Takht.
(Photos: A. Peter)

“What the eff!”

I turned to look at Anjali. She was looking around our hotel room in Amritsar in disbelief and... disgust.

“What?”

“There are no windows in this room! Did you know?”

“Er... er... no.” I felt claustrophobia clutch my throat. I looked around and there were indeed no windows. I hadn't had a good feeling when I entered the hotel. A couple of brawny men had lounged on a sofa near the lobby and leered at us.

The guys at reception had made us wait unreasonably and looked at us and cracked jokes. In one corner I could hear a man berating his wife for some nameless sin. Chill, dude. Everyone's on holiday here. I had glared at the back of his oily head until he turned around and glared at us and the world in general.

My glance returned to Anjali. She was in a rage. She ran out of the room. “Anjali, wait! Where are you going!”

“To give those idiots a piece of my mind.”

“Wait!” But Anjali had run out. I grabbed my purse, and pulled out the card key from its socket and chased her down the stairs. The lift was still meandering downwards, too slow for my firebrand friend.

“There are no windows in our room. Yet it's called an executive suite.”

“You booked it, madam. You should have checked,” the man in the suit, behind the tall counter, said coolly. 

“It wasn't in the details,” I stammered, wondering whether it was something one had to keep a track of while booking hotel rooms. What else had I missed?

“It's the first time I've been in a hotel with no windows,” Anjali continued. 

“None of our other customers have complained.”

“Give us another room – with a window!” Anjali said, annoyed.

The man didn't budge, nor did his expression change. “There are none available right now. The hotel is fully booked.”

“How come?” 

The front desk manager took a second look at Anjali. “Er, Guru Nanak's birthday celebrations. And this is a tourist city. We are full year round.”

“Ok, look into your computer and change our room.”

“No room vacant, madam. All booked.”

“You didn't check.”

“I don't need to. We don’t have empty rooms.”

“How many rooms in this hotel don't have windows?” Anjali asked.

“Eh?”

“How many rooms don't have windows?”

“All the rooms in that wing... er, upto the third floor.”

“How come?”

“That was the way the building was built...”

“Was this building meant to be a hotel when it was first constructed?”

“Sir!” the man backed away and bumped into his superior. They spoke in hushed tones and the superior came to the desk and reiterated, “We don't have rooms with windows available at this time.”

“Is that why you had a massive discount on the room? And then you charged us a full rate because I tagged along, even though we're sharing a double bed and nothing technically has changed in the room? In fact, I paid extra money for the room assuming there was a window.”

“That's the deal, madam. Take it or leave it!” 

Anjali turned to me, “Show me the original booking.”

I hunted for the email on my phone and showed her the booking details. We then went online to the site and located the room. Nothing. There was no way to push our case. 

“Have you paid the full amount for both days?” Anjali asked me.

“Yes.”

“I think we should write this up on TripAdvisor. Wouldn't want anyone else to get conned. Come on!” Anjali grabbed my arm and marched me towards the lift. “Don't look back, keep your back stiff and hold your head high,” Anjali hissed. 

We relaxed in the lift. “What now, Anjali?”

“Nothing. We grab dinner and roam about the whole place the next two days and remember to try and not look into the street – through the wall. Just rely on our imagination – from an aerial perspective,” Anjali grinned.

We freshened up and made our way downstairs again, our moods considerably improved by the peg of rum each we had consumed and our phone calls to Fish, Genie and Roma.

                                                    ****** 

This is a fictional series about the narrator, her former pet fish and man servant. She's broke (see past episodes) and unemployed now but has decided to travel to Amritsar, Punjab, to visit the holiest shrine of the Sikhs. She's joined by her best friend Anjali.

                                                    ****** 

Though we were slightly nervous, the doorman organised an autorickshaw for us. We agreed on a price and set off.

“Hold on to your purses tightly, madams. And put it between you, not on the outside,” the driver said. 

“Purse snatching, you think?” Anjali murmured into my ear. We tucked our purses between our hips, shivering despite our sweaters. 

“Probably. But the driver doesn't seem keen to explain.”

“Hmm. Did you notice his eyes?”

“Yes.” The driver looked careworn, but cut an elegant picture with his lean physique swathed in a thick black shawl, red pagadi (turban) and drool-worthy grey eyes. I looked at Anjali and grinned. He did not fit our idea of a smoking hot Punjabi man, but we dutifully stared our fill. We nodded and smiled when he started pointing out the local sights until he let us go, reluctantly, in front of the restaurant Bharawan Da Dhaba. He was smiling now – the effect of us asking him questions non-stop. Roma's dad would have told us we were flirting with him.

“Why is there only vegetarian food on the menu?” Anjali's mouth curled downward. 

“Ah. I forgot to tell you. No meat is served near the Golden Temple.” Anjali's head whipped up in disbelief. 

Poor Anjali. She'd come to Amritsar hoping she'd bite into a large tangdi (tandoori chicken leg). When she wrote, she rarely cared to eat and was usually skinny. She had been a non-vegetarian in a strictly vegetarian household and I was partly to blame for her gastronomic deviation. I shared my tiffin with her all through school and when her parents found out it had been too late – she had even eaten beef and loved it.

“Seriously... I was hoping for some mutton. Kebabs. Legs. Anything that's not a leaf or a legume.”

I fished out my phone. “There are places we can try tomorrow.” I looked at the dark outside, the poorly lighted street looked empty even though the restaurant was packed. I looked back at Anjali and she smiled. We moved closer to the wall to let a family share our table. We finally settled on a special Amritsari kulcha and rajma chana and paratha and paneer. Absolutely divine, though bland unlike the spicy, masala-filled dishes that were passed off as Punjabi in Mumbai.

                                                     ******

Even though it was past 11pm, we got off our rickshaw a way off and walked back slowly chatting and laughing. It felt creepy in our lonely lane and finally we felt relief when we saw our shady hotel.

I say shady because now there were some goon-like entities in the lobby and a couple of gaudily made up women tightly squeezed into the sofas with the men. 

I didn't want to look at Anjali. Roma would have given me a stiff lecture there and then about my extraordinary lack of good sense clinging to my extraordinary thrift. “No wonder you got a 75% discount, sweetie,” Anjali said, “I'm just surprised the hotelwallas claim they have a full house.” A swear word escaped her. “Which hotel do you know has ever been full. Bloody liars!”

“Madam, madam, wait!” a man called out to us. We stopped near the group lounging on the sofas. Anjali looked at them carefully and then looked away. The receptionist smiled at us apologetically. “Madam, we have a room vacant. Perhaps you'd like to move there.”

“Yes,” I said. I felt Anjali pull me back. 

“You said there was no place. Does the room have a window?” she said.

“Er, yes, madam. Window in the room. It will cost you Rs1,000 more. I'll send up staff now to move your luggage.”

“You made me pay extra for joining this madam in her room. As far as I can see, there are no facilities. Even the towels are threadbare and look brown. And a window is just that. It is supposed to come free with a room and one isn't expected to ask for it.”

The receptionist and I stared at Anjali. She was in a killer mood. Ordinarily I would have supported her but it was nearly 11pm, we were in an unfamiliar city and the guys on the sofa were now looking at us with great interest.  

“Er, the manager...” the receptionist pointed behind him at the smarmy supervisor.

“Take it or leave it?” Anjali said.

“Er...”

The lift doors opened and Anjali grabbed my arm and pulled me into the lift.

We eyed the receptionist coolly while the door closed. “Why couldn't we have just taken the room?” I was curious.

“Just felt like being contrarian. But I got the feeling they were having fun with us. Are you bothered by our room? Except for the lack of a window, which we wouldn't have been able to open, and old-looking towels, I think the room is decent.”

I nodded. In any case, we didn't notice. We spoke all night, ate snacks we'd brought with us and in the morning made it downstairs to breakfast just in time. We shared a table, in the crowded dining room, with one of the ‘goons' and his girlfriend of the previous night and were pleasantly surprised to find they were easy to talk to. He was long haired and had a long beard, with streaks of grey in both, was well built and wore a tight grey t-shirt and tight jeans. I saw his leather jacket of the night before hanging on the back of his chair. His girlfriend looked demure, dressed in a light pink kurta churidhar and fluffy cotton dupatta. He told us he had brought her to Amritsar to take her to the Golden Temple and they spent the mornings praying there and the evenings roaming about the markets. 

They gave us tips on things to buy and how to bargain. And, strangely, suggested we buy heeng (asafoetida), which, he said, was sold in its solid form in the market. A little later, I understood why. He was a foodie and cooked to bust stress. 

When Anjali told him I loved cooking, he showed us a picture of his latest stash of spices and I told him how I had discovered my mother's, grandmother's and great grandmother's recipe books and was trying to decipher them. 

At the end of breakfast, when Simran had kissed our cheeks and hugged us, we felt chastened, and ashamed, at how we had assumed the worst based on how they had looked. Clearly our powers of reading people were rubbish. 

We ate breakfast like we wouldn't get a morsel of food for the next few days. We walked to the temple, felt awed, subdued and touched by the faith of those around us. We spent hours there, until we began to feel hungry. We slowly walked out, had a watery lassi at a nearby stall and proceeded to debate a non-veg lunch. If we didn't spend too long eating, we were going to take a shuttle to watch the lowering of the flag ceremony at the Attari-Wagah border. 

Anjali looped her arm in mine and pulled me into a solar powered rickshaw. The cold weather was a plus. We'd just have to wing the windowless room and tacky towels. I'd already identified things I wanted to take back and that would mean a proper hunt around Amritsar's streets.

And I had a plan.
                           

The Harmandir Sahib or Golden Temple (Photo: A. Peter)

More street scenes. Everyone's walking towards the Golden Temple complex. Bottom left, devotees in front of the holy lake, taking a dip and praying. There is a separate area for ladies to enter the holy lake. At right is the Harmandir Sahib or Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs. A visit to the langar is a must. Amazing community spirit - comes through in the way work is shared and the spirit is one.
(Photos: A. Peter)