Hello and welcome to the third part of our trip in India.
In our last blog we went to see the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort in Agra and then we were back on the plane to head for the famous Punjab city of Amritsar.
For those of you who are not aware the whole reason we went to India was because I have a friend that I met when I was working in Banking in Canada who was getting married and was lovely enough to invite Kyran and I.
This was an opportunity that I was not going to miss (we had heard of the fantastic and prestigious Indian weddings before) so we gladly accepted the invitation.
From the moment that we landed in Amritsar, we were becoming aware of the wedding celebrations and traditions - as my friend had already participated in the first ceremony of ring exchange and was not allowed to travel far from home once the ceremonies had started. As a result we were greeted at the airport by my friends brother and sister and uncle.
INSERT: It seems that in the Punjabi province the youth all refer to the older men as uncle and the older women and auntie. Close friends of the family in particular. We think this 'uncle' was just a good friend of the bride's father.
So we were greeted at the airport by the younger brother and sister with a bunch of flowers which was lovely😍!!
Then from what we had previously googled it was to be a long drive back to their house (about 3 hours from our calculation).
It is funny when you meet someone for the first time and you are not sure what they are like, what they find funny etc. especially when there are cultural barriers as well.
For example I was not sure whether to hug or shake hands.
But it was perfect because the car that they came to pick us up in was too small to fit both our suitcases in the back so we quickly had to laugh as the boys were trying to squish stuff in and taking clothes out of the bags to see if they would fit.
It was funny and I think that we quickly all learned that it was funny. In the end the poor brother had to put one of our massive suitcases on his knee for the entire 3 hour long journey back home.😂😂😂
The only reprieve was when we stopped over to stretch our legs and have some dinner after about 1.5 hours of driving.
Haveli - Punjabi Traditional Restaurants
This was a really cool traditional Punjabi theme park/cultural preservation park. Aside from the massive cool-looking dining area there were statues and props that refer to traditional activities or festivities. Here are some of the things we encountered:
Below: Here I am with the guy that opens to the door to the very fancy place that we ate. He is a good example of the traditional Punjabi clothes (you will see more on this in future blogs). Note his shoes, they have curly toes, these shoes are known as Punjabi Jutti and are unique to the Punjab province and are typically made out of leather (remembering that you can't kill cows in India) so the shoes, so I've been told, are made from camel, goat or other non protected animals.
Below: We did mention the 'mad max' trucks in the last blog, in fact we even used the same picture. But I just wanted to mention them again here as this is the location that we took this photo and to note that this is not just some truck but as you can read a public carrier - woo hoo load 'em up! An Indian alternative to a bus. Note the make of the truck is "Tata", that's an Indian brand of vehicles.
Below: Pictures my self and my new beautiful sister, in the foreground of a set up depicting Punjabi women dancing in traditional clothes.
Below: This is a traditional style of cart that would have been pulled by oxen
Below: All the troop that came to pick us up for the Airport posing in front of the traditional cart Above.
This is where it get interesting - Food! And Poop!
Above: This is a vessel that you put the cow pat around and you set them on fire. Then you add another vessel (A bowl from what I can tell) to the fiery cow poo and you boil it from morning to night. In the Evening you should have what the locals call curd (or Dahi) but what I guess us westerners would understand as maybe more like a Yogurt - I have been told that they add a bit of butter to the recently boiled-all-day milk (I would imagine that this is how they introduce the bacteria to make it a yogurt).
Once you have got your curd and you want to process it further the Below device which I have been told is a Mthani which you use to agitate the Curd to make either Butter or butter milk (This is what I have been told).
While we are addressing the production of food, us westerners just go to the shops and buy without thinking about how it would have all been made before machines. Below is very heavy stone that sits on top of another very heavy stone that is then rotated while the grain that you wish to pulverise is slowly added to the middle. By the time that said gain has worked its way out between the two very heavy stones it will be thoroughly pulverised or as we know it - Flour! This is a mill stone.
Keeping on the topic of food these below are what is known as Jalebi - They are akin to a doughnut mixture but are made by frying in a liquid hot butter (as the oil) and dipping into corn syrup. So as you can imagine, buttery, fatty, sweet run-down-your-arm sticky goodness. If you would like to see how they are made I did share a video to our Facebook page: Findlater Travels but also I will insert the video below (hopefully it works)
Above: Bullock cart racing seems to be an Indian cultural activity for special festivals
Below: This is hard to fully describe without doing all the rest of the wedding blogs first. But this is essentially the going away ride for the bride. The just married bride will ride in this box thing (I'd call it a "litter") carried by either the brides brothers or family servants (i.e "litter bearers") from the bride's family. She will be carried along behind the groom who will be riding a horse in front (usually a white horse).
Note: As far as I can tell they don't do this anymore. From the wedding we went to they just got in a car lol.
The Huts/ grain storage:
If you read our last blog this is something that we promised to get back to.
In the last blog you would have seen these two images below where I introduced them as local village housing in Delhi.
Well now I would like to introduce you to the grain storage method that we encountered in the Punjabi state.
From what I have been told and understand is that when you do the wheat harvest and you have all your grain you need to store it in a place where is will be dry and accessible all year round for when you need to feed your livestock.
So it is not an uncommon site to see the Below grass hut looking structure in the middle of the field.
What they do is the make a ring of grass/ hay and they fill it with wheat. Then they add another ring of grass/ hay and do the same thing until they reach a peak and they tie it all off.
When it is time to access the wheat all they do is punch a hole in the bottom of the hut thing and the grain will start to run out. As you remove more and more grain the grain from the top will move down and the peak will start to collapsed/lower until the hut thing is completely empty and collapsed on itself.
Fantastic engineering don't you think!
Dinner - Lets not forget what we came here for.
This was our first sit down, not street food meal in India and this is how it is done.
They give you one big plate and lots of small plates you then divide up the curries into the smaller plates/bowls and you put your flat bread (roti/nan) on the rest of your plate and away you go. Pretty fancy!
Bonus Level: The food was not spicy at all (this was my biggest fear about India - A burning ring of fire)
Above: A nice dinner set arrangement, these collections of metal dishes are called Thali. The large one is the main plate thing, and the smaller bowls are for the various curries.
Below: The inside of the restaurant! Fancy! Tapestry/drapes from the ceiling, amazing brick archways, fancy staircases and aesthetic use of ropes. Was a joy to behold!
After food and introduction to the culture and history it was on the road again. Well that is what we thought...
This was our first introduction to the way Indians always put air in their tyres any chance they get!
Insert: Before you think that we are talking about something boring, this is something that we later learned that Indian drivers seem to take very seriously - and in the days to come there were very few times that we would leave the house in a vehicle and they would not stop to check the tyres. I would assume that this is as a result of the poor condition of the roads and that they actually like to look after their vehicles. They pay close attention to their vehicle's maintenance needs, always checking the oil and liquid levels and air levels almost daily.
We were greeted with more Indian tea and finger food like the below food that was also presented in the mornings with tea, the selection varied but I will go into that detail later.
After tea and saying hello to all the family it was bed time as (if memory serves) it was midnight by the time we got in.
This is also where I was planning to end this blog but as I can now see the next one is going to be pretty big so lets start the next day here as well.
The next day was one of three days that we had before the wedding to get all the clothes bought and in order (tailored etc). But in the time that we were not out'n'about there were a few things around the house that I would like to mention here:
Below: These are super awesome bed chair things and they were made by one of the aunties.
Let me explain why they are super awesome:
1. They were great for laying around in the sun to warm up
2. They were super light weight and were leaned against the wall out the way when they were not in use
3.They are a work of art, look at that detail.
4. The double as chairs when there are heaps of people over and you can easily fit 8 people sitting around on one of these.
5. The blue one below is extra awesome because you can lay on it with your muddy boots on and the mud falls through the gaps and does not work its way to your butt.
Below: The Mango leaf for Luck
This is something that we noticed pretty quickly. They had one singular leaf tied to the door to the kitchen area.
When I asked my friend about it she said that it is a mango leaf and that it is tied to the door for luck.
She said that it is typically tied to the front door of the house (they had them strung up there too) and that some people will only tie one leaf to one door or other people will tie lots of leaves to lots of doors.
My friend said that this is done for luck for any major celebration ie. weddings, engagements, births etc.
Below: Tractor - a symbol of status
I suppose in every culture the young fellas always have to have something to peacock with, in Australia it the Ute, in Canada it's the big truck, and in India it is the Tractor.
As with all status symbols they can not be factory standard, they always have to have some sort of after market modification to enhance the status of the young adolescent that is to be seen with it, and this one was decked out with a pretty serious custom sound system.
But the ol' tractor with a sound system serves its purpose don't be fooled:
1. It's scares away all the animals within a 10 km radius while you are farming
2. You can't hear any of your female family members yelling at you, in fact you would be hard pressed to hear anything ever again after a full day farming on one of these bad boys.
3. Party? did you say party? I got the party!
Below: here the boys have set up the tractor to shine the headlines on a wall in the courtyard, they have the sound system blaring Bhangra style music and Punjabi pop music and the indicator lights (hazard lights) are blinking, LED strips blazing.. A great party!
4.Chicks dig tractors!😂😂😂
I mock them, but they are all great guys!😚😚😚
Moving on to the food again!
Just looking at this picture make me hungry!
The food every day was amazing! and it was what ever was in season/cheap at the markets.
Usually you only have a spoon to eat with. What you do is you rip a bit of the roti bread off and you fold it to make a sort of soon/cup/food holding area, then you spoon your food onto the bread and then you eat the bread.
Oof I'm so hungry right now... ✈✈✈ I could go back to India tomorrow just for the food!
But also now that I am writing this blog I am missing the family there too.
Below: The Indian Kitchen
I think that there are varying degrees of the Indian Kitchen depending on wealth and quantity of people to feed. This was our home kitchen and the 'auntie' that we seemed to have around cooking and cleaning a lot of the time. Here you can see the roti being cooked!
I think this is probably a good place to introduce you to the Indian (Punjabi) style of house building. Mainly because I found it to be very different and as with any house building it is definitely built to the local climate.
I have created the image below as a rough depiction of the house that we stayed in.
1. The house had no outward facing windows
2. The house had high ceilings
3. The kitchen/cooking area was separate to the rest of the house
4. The toilet/shower was separate to the rest of the house
5. There as a random extra small room on the roof
Below: We did mention the 'mad max' trucks in the last blog, in fact we even used the same picture. But I just wanted to mention them again here as this is the location that we took this photo and to note that this is not just some truck but as you can read a public carrier - woo hoo load 'em up! An Indian alternative to a bus. Note the make of the truck is "Tata", that's an Indian brand of vehicles.
Below: Pictures my self and my new beautiful sister, in the foreground of a set up depicting Punjabi women dancing in traditional clothes.
Below: This is a traditional style of cart that would have been pulled by oxen
Below: All the troop that came to pick us up for the Airport posing in front of the traditional cart Above.
This is where it get interesting - Food! And Poop!
Once you have got your curd and you want to process it further the Below device which I have been told is a Mthani which you use to agitate the Curd to make either Butter or butter milk (This is what I have been told).
While we are addressing the production of food, us westerners just go to the shops and buy without thinking about how it would have all been made before machines. Below is very heavy stone that sits on top of another very heavy stone that is then rotated while the grain that you wish to pulverise is slowly added to the middle. By the time that said gain has worked its way out between the two very heavy stones it will be thoroughly pulverised or as we know it - Flour! This is a mill stone.
Keeping on the topic of food these below are what is known as Jalebi - They are akin to a doughnut mixture but are made by frying in a liquid hot butter (as the oil) and dipping into corn syrup. So as you can imagine, buttery, fatty, sweet run-down-your-arm sticky goodness. If you would like to see how they are made I did share a video to our Facebook page: Findlater Travels but also I will insert the video below (hopefully it works)
Alrighty I feel as though I should do an insert here for those of you who don't know our dietary habits that we are normally Vegan, but we do try to be practical about it and not starve ourselves to death either.
So full disclaimer for our time in India we had to revert back to "Vegetarian" as it seemed like literally everything had milk in it. That said we were really surprised to find that Vegetarian seemed to be the norm. So there was so much food to eat!
The other main aspect is we still didn't eat eggs, and the milk in India comes from SACRED animals, so they are treated with respect at all times, and they actually CAN'T (legally) kill the little boy cows, so almost all of the main issues we have with the mainstream western dairy industry don't really count in India.
The other main aspect is we still didn't eat eggs, and the milk in India comes from SACRED animals, so they are treated with respect at all times, and they actually CAN'T (legally) kill the little boy cows, so almost all of the main issues we have with the mainstream western dairy industry don't really count in India.
Below: This is Indian tea. The tea is extremely weak in terms of the 'tea' flavour, and is 99% hot milk with added sugar and/or spices to sweeten it. Could be up to 1 tablespoon of sugar per 'cup' worth of tea, so very sweet indeed. Typically made by brewing tea leaves in hot/boiling milk in a saucepan or pot over a flame. India is the world's largest tea drinking country!
Above: Bullock cart racing seems to be an Indian cultural activity for special festivals
Below: This is hard to fully describe without doing all the rest of the wedding blogs first. But this is essentially the going away ride for the bride. The just married bride will ride in this box thing (I'd call it a "litter") carried by either the brides brothers or family servants (i.e "litter bearers") from the bride's family. She will be carried along behind the groom who will be riding a horse in front (usually a white horse).
Note: As far as I can tell they don't do this anymore. From the wedding we went to they just got in a car lol.
The Huts/ grain storage:
If you read our last blog this is something that we promised to get back to.
In the last blog you would have seen these two images below where I introduced them as local village housing in Delhi.
Well now I would like to introduce you to the grain storage method that we encountered in the Punjabi state.
From what I have been told and understand is that when you do the wheat harvest and you have all your grain you need to store it in a place where is will be dry and accessible all year round for when you need to feed your livestock.
So it is not an uncommon site to see the Below grass hut looking structure in the middle of the field.
What they do is the make a ring of grass/ hay and they fill it with wheat. Then they add another ring of grass/ hay and do the same thing until they reach a peak and they tie it all off.
When it is time to access the wheat all they do is punch a hole in the bottom of the hut thing and the grain will start to run out. As you remove more and more grain the grain from the top will move down and the peak will start to collapsed/lower until the hut thing is completely empty and collapsed on itself.
Fantastic engineering don't you think!
Dinner - Lets not forget what we came here for.
This was our first sit down, not street food meal in India and this is how it is done.
They give you one big plate and lots of small plates you then divide up the curries into the smaller plates/bowls and you put your flat bread (roti/nan) on the rest of your plate and away you go. Pretty fancy!
Bonus Level: The food was not spicy at all (this was my biggest fear about India - A burning ring of fire)
Below: The inside of the restaurant! Fancy! Tapestry/drapes from the ceiling, amazing brick archways, fancy staircases and aesthetic use of ropes. Was a joy to behold!
This was our first introduction to the way Indians always put air in their tyres any chance they get!
Insert: Before you think that we are talking about something boring, this is something that we later learned that Indian drivers seem to take very seriously - and in the days to come there were very few times that we would leave the house in a vehicle and they would not stop to check the tyres. I would assume that this is as a result of the poor condition of the roads and that they actually like to look after their vehicles. They pay close attention to their vehicle's maintenance needs, always checking the oil and liquid levels and air levels almost daily.
After that we finished checking our tyres it was just the last leg of our journey "home" to my friend's parent's house where we stayed for the rest of our time in India.
We were greeted with more Indian tea and finger food like the below food that was also presented in the mornings with tea, the selection varied but I will go into that detail later.
After tea and saying hello to all the family it was bed time as (if memory serves) it was midnight by the time we got in.
This is also where I was planning to end this blog but as I can now see the next one is going to be pretty big so lets start the next day here as well.
The next day was one of three days that we had before the wedding to get all the clothes bought and in order (tailored etc). But in the time that we were not out'n'about there were a few things around the house that I would like to mention here:
Below: These are super awesome bed chair things and they were made by one of the aunties.
Let me explain why they are super awesome:
1. They were great for laying around in the sun to warm up
2. They were super light weight and were leaned against the wall out the way when they were not in use
3.They are a work of art, look at that detail.
4. The double as chairs when there are heaps of people over and you can easily fit 8 people sitting around on one of these.
5. The blue one below is extra awesome because you can lay on it with your muddy boots on and the mud falls through the gaps and does not work its way to your butt.
Below: The Mango leaf for Luck
This is something that we noticed pretty quickly. They had one singular leaf tied to the door to the kitchen area. When I asked my friend about it she said that it is a mango leaf and that it is tied to the door for luck.
She said that it is typically tied to the front door of the house (they had them strung up there too) and that some people will only tie one leaf to one door or other people will tie lots of leaves to lots of doors.
My friend said that this is done for luck for any major celebration ie. weddings, engagements, births etc.
Below: Tractor - a symbol of status
I suppose in every culture the young fellas always have to have something to peacock with, in Australia it the Ute, in Canada it's the big truck, and in India it is the Tractor.
As with all status symbols they can not be factory standard, they always have to have some sort of after market modification to enhance the status of the young adolescent that is to be seen with it, and this one was decked out with a pretty serious custom sound system.
But the ol' tractor with a sound system serves its purpose don't be fooled:
1. It's scares away all the animals within a 10 km radius while you are farming
2. You can't hear any of your female family members yelling at you, in fact you would be hard pressed to hear anything ever again after a full day farming on one of these bad boys.
3. Party? did you say party? I got the party!
Below: here the boys have set up the tractor to shine the headlines on a wall in the courtyard, they have the sound system blaring Bhangra style music and Punjabi pop music and the indicator lights (hazard lights) are blinking, LED strips blazing.. A great party!
4.Chicks dig tractors!😂😂😂
I mock them, but they are all great guys!😚😚😚
Moving on to the food again!
Just looking at this picture make me hungry!The food every day was amazing! and it was what ever was in season/cheap at the markets.
Usually you only have a spoon to eat with. What you do is you rip a bit of the roti bread off and you fold it to make a sort of soon/cup/food holding area, then you spoon your food onto the bread and then you eat the bread.
Oof I'm so hungry right now... ✈✈✈ I could go back to India tomorrow just for the food!
But also now that I am writing this blog I am missing the family there too.
Below: The Indian Kitchen
I think that there are varying degrees of the Indian Kitchen depending on wealth and quantity of people to feed. This was our home kitchen and the 'auntie' that we seemed to have around cooking and cleaning a lot of the time. Here you can see the roti being cooked!
I think this is probably a good place to introduce you to the Indian (Punjabi) style of house building. Mainly because I found it to be very different and as with any house building it is definitely built to the local climate.
I have created the image below as a rough depiction of the house that we stayed in.
1. The house had no outward facing windows
2. The house had high ceilings
3. The kitchen/cooking area was separate to the rest of the house
4. The toilet/shower was separate to the rest of the house
5. There as a random extra small room on the roof
The house was very big on the inside, with one large main entrance room surrounded on 3 sides by 4-5 large square-ish rooms. At least 3 rooms were bedrooms, one was an inside kitchen/ food storage area (undergoing renovations at the time), and a side room which has another door access to the outside.
The ceilings were very tall, and the floors were polished/sealed concrete - the walls were probably a brick core with mortared exterior finish.
The thing that you have to remember is that in India the summers are extremely hot which makes sense that the sleeping area and cooking areas are separate and that everything is made out of brick and concrete to keep the cool in and regulate the temperature.
The flip side to this is come winter time (the time that we were there) the house still has the same features so we found that it was very cold at night but that it warmed up in the middle of the day. So people's habits seemed to revolve around the temperate. We all cuddled up for warmth until the sun came up and then we all went out into the court yard to lounge around in the sun and warm up like lizards.
There were two things that struck me as odd about this method of existing:
1. In Australia or at least on my family farm we would have had a barrel with a fire in it and we would all have warmed up around that. I'm guessing that this is more of a luxury in India due to the scarcity of things to burn. There aren't that many spare trees around!
2. The time that it took people to get moving in the morning. I don't mean any offence by this but it is just in my time on a farm we were up and out the door as the sun rose and we didn't come back till the sun went down - what I mean to say is we had a full days work. In India it seemed that as a result of their reliance on heat they didn't get moving for the day until 10-11 am and as soon as it started getting cold we all started to rug up and go inside again.
I mean I know that they were in celebration mode and all so I'm not judging as much as I am observing. The nature of farming long growth-cycle crops like wheat and rice also means that there is a lot of idle time between the harvest and planting cycles, which weren't due for another 1.5-2 months.
The next exciting thing we encountered while living there for 10 days was the shower wasn't quite operating, so us and the rest of the family showered each day by way of water in a big tub and a smaller bucket/ container to pour the water over yourself with.
The water was hot at least, which was nice - I don't think we would have survived if it was cold water only! In that case would definitely have only showered in the hottest time of the day, maybe early afternoon.
Ya know, it's hard to have "shower thoughts" when you are squatting over a tub and desperately throwing water at yourself. I think every day was a 'leg' day from the amount of squatting to wash hair too!
Above: The farm house at night with all the wedding celebration lights up and running :)
Below: The farm house at day, we are about to go out shopping for all our wedding gear!
Well that brings us to the end of this blog and leaves us even closer to the inevitable preparations for the wedding ceremonies. So thanks for reading and stay tuned for our next adventures!!
The ceilings were very tall, and the floors were polished/sealed concrete - the walls were probably a brick core with mortared exterior finish.
The thing that you have to remember is that in India the summers are extremely hot which makes sense that the sleeping area and cooking areas are separate and that everything is made out of brick and concrete to keep the cool in and regulate the temperature.
The flip side to this is come winter time (the time that we were there) the house still has the same features so we found that it was very cold at night but that it warmed up in the middle of the day. So people's habits seemed to revolve around the temperate. We all cuddled up for warmth until the sun came up and then we all went out into the court yard to lounge around in the sun and warm up like lizards.
There were two things that struck me as odd about this method of existing:
1. In Australia or at least on my family farm we would have had a barrel with a fire in it and we would all have warmed up around that. I'm guessing that this is more of a luxury in India due to the scarcity of things to burn. There aren't that many spare trees around!
2. The time that it took people to get moving in the morning. I don't mean any offence by this but it is just in my time on a farm we were up and out the door as the sun rose and we didn't come back till the sun went down - what I mean to say is we had a full days work. In India it seemed that as a result of their reliance on heat they didn't get moving for the day until 10-11 am and as soon as it started getting cold we all started to rug up and go inside again.
I mean I know that they were in celebration mode and all so I'm not judging as much as I am observing. The nature of farming long growth-cycle crops like wheat and rice also means that there is a lot of idle time between the harvest and planting cycles, which weren't due for another 1.5-2 months.
The next exciting thing we encountered while living there for 10 days was the shower wasn't quite operating, so us and the rest of the family showered each day by way of water in a big tub and a smaller bucket/ container to pour the water over yourself with. The water was hot at least, which was nice - I don't think we would have survived if it was cold water only! In that case would definitely have only showered in the hottest time of the day, maybe early afternoon.
Ya know, it's hard to have "shower thoughts" when you are squatting over a tub and desperately throwing water at yourself. I think every day was a 'leg' day from the amount of squatting to wash hair too!
Each morning we were greeted with a nice fresh hot brew of Indian tea, served with sweets, around 7-8am. By around 10-10:30, the kitchen-hand (local lady helping out during the wedding period, not sure if she was paid or was a regular worker throughout the year) was hard at work making breakfast. Sometimes masi (aunty in punjab) and our new surrogate Indian mum helped out in the kitchen. We all got curry (dal, watery curry usually with some potato (see the earlier pictures - that was a typical 'breakfast'.) and lots of roti for breakfast and it was quite tasty!
Above: The farm house at night with all the wedding celebration lights up and running :)
Below: The farm house at day, we are about to go out shopping for all our wedding gear!
Well that brings us to the end of this blog and leaves us even closer to the inevitable preparations for the wedding ceremonies. So thanks for reading and stay tuned for our next adventures!!
Very very well detailed. Beautiful pictures! I would never imagine having this kind of experience in Amritsar. Thank you for sharing your experience! Amritsar is an amazing place and you have explained it in a great manner. I really like your post. We are also providing Taxi Services in Amritsar.
ReplyDelete