Amritsar II

The majority of labour at the Golden Temple is provided by volunteers; one of the main contributions they make is in the kitchens, which are extensive and which run 24 hours a day, providing free food to anyone who wants it.  The only condition of eating within the Temple complex is that if you accept something onto your plate you must eat it.  Needless to say, I had no trouble with this!

Handing out plates to the diners

Coming into the food hall I collected a plate, a bowl and a spoon, then we sat down on the floor in long lines, with an aisle between the rows.   

Diners waiting to have our bowls filled

Servers walked along the aisles, handing out chapattis, spinach curry, two types of dhal and a sweet milky rice noodle dish. The food was excellent (it seems harder to get bad food than good in India).

Handing out chapattis behind me

My plate beginning to be filled...after this my hands got dirty and I couldn't take any more photos!

Once we'd finished we took our plates to the collection area, where volunteers scraped them and passed them on to be washed by other volunteers.  There was a huge din of several hundred people working and several thousand stainless steel plates rattling!

Our plates being scraped...the huge area in the background is the preparation & cooking area for the temple

Plates being washed and dried

Walking out I passed a roped off area with about 30 people sitting down with the heads bowed.  I initially assumed they were praying or perhaps meditating but looking more closely I realised they were all volunteers peeling garlic for the next meal.  It seemed an unusual, though very valuable, way of earning merit!

Garlic-peelers

It had been a cool day, and standing on cold marble in wet feet for much of it had been challenging: given our shoe-less state my colleagues and I gratefully grabbed a rickshaw back to the carpark where our shoes were!

Four in a rickshaw