Patiala

Off the beaten path in Punjab, this small town by Indian standard (nearly 2 million people) was recommended as a good place to get to know the Sikh people, i.e. adherents of Sikhism, a monotheistic religion founded around 1200 A.D, and for its old bazaar.

Sikh Temple or Gurdwara (aka the door or the gateway to the Guru)

The Sikh suffered a lot throughout time, from both the Hindus and the Muslims, so they have the reputation of honest, easy tempered and fierce fighters, and although tradition requires every man to bear a knife all the time, I guess these days’ mobile phones are more common than knives.

What I found unusual with the Sikhs is that the men instead of the women need to comply with some strict customs related to their appearance in public. While with Muslims women have to cover their heads and faces, with the Hindus it is always women who have to wear as many piercings as possible, as for the Chinese it is the same - women were required to have their feet bound from childhood for the sake of beauty. But with the Sikhs, it is men who need not to cut their hair ever, or shave their beard or moustache, and it is also them who need to “suffer” an omnipresent turban even at 30+ Celsius.

Not many foreigners reach here, so.....i was quite a star, being asked twice to give…autographs. No kiddin – first it happened on a peaked cap, for some boys near the temple pool, second on a school notebook by this group of school girls. The tallest one was very pushy and insisted i should come and meet their parents at a cup of tea, proudly saying that they belong to Rais caste. I still don’t know why did I refuse their invitation…..was it the lack of time, as always?


I soon found a deserted Maharajah palace, such a cliché....but i loved strolling around the ruins, imagining how life used to look like from here, where the harem might have been……why did I refuse the girls invitation to tea?...

A tiny bodyguard appeared from nowhere and directed us out, pretexting the walls might collapse on us.