Trip with sister: Town of Amritsar

Amritsar was rich in scenes and images akin to those that you find on black-and-white photos from early 1900-s that now are getting dusty in the achieves of a small-town-museum. Women in traditional clothes and men in turbans. A pharmacy with wooden closets survived from the times of the British rule, where a tall and lean pharmacist in small stiff glasses rations powders, wraps them in light brown paper and gives them, along with the prescriptions, to the customers patiently sitting and waiting for him. Narrow streets with small dusty shops where spices are stocked in huge sacks and sold loose by old men in turbans. Masses of velo-rickshaws, these more old-fashioned vehicles than autos, look way more appropriate in the settings and appear to be a good option for getting around in the town not particular famous for its distances.





However, we were not really keen on exploring the city despite attractive shopping opportunities, a chance to get a free overnight stay at the dormitory of the Temple and a pity that 17 hour trip was undertaken just for the sake of just 2,5 hours in the Temple. What held us back was the mere absence of any possibility to comfortably get around. A crowd would emerge around us in no time and would just follow us. I somehow knew about the situation in Punjab: about the low the status of women, about the horrifying child sex ratio attributed to the wide spread practice of female foeticide , about men who take liberty to establish their masculinity in the ways often humiliating for women. You will find lots of such Punjabi “specialties” in Delhi too. Yet, being there, experiencing it first-hand was a different thing. When you walk through hi-s (mam, sweetie, girl, sexy…), attempts to brush against you, to glue to you, endless stairs - it feels like escaping. Actually, this is what our leave from the town was like – running away without looking back.

Only at the end when we were leaving the city we could eventually take it easy: our velo-rickshaw was cleaving on a busy motorway towards the bus terminal: we were laughing, smiling back and waving to the whistling, commenting, singing, crying “Hei sweetie” and simply staring men passing by on their bikes, cars and whatever vehicles. Along with the lights illuminating night city this all contributed to the festive atmosphere that came into town right upon out arrival. They were celebrating. We preferred to refrain from joining them.

In my guidebook Amritsar is described as “pleasantly friendly and noticeably free of persistent hawkers and rickshaw wallahs”. This make me absolutely convinced in the necessity of gender mainstreaming in travel writing. Full of sticky, annoying, desperate men – this is what this North-Indian town is.