Nanded

Religious ROADIES ka TASHAN

version 8.5

JUJAHAR[JUJII] : MANPREET : MOHIT : JASMEET[JASS]

AMITH : BHAJAN : MANINDER : VISHAL : ANAND

Well it was time again to try something different in my life and this time it was Goa yes all set to Goa but no one was willing to come and it finally shifted to Nanded and Hyderabad coz one of my friend Maninder and his friends were planning to have a visit to Hazur Sahib.

So we all Jujahar(JUJii), Manpreet, Mohit, Jasmeet(JASS), Amith, Bhajan, Maninder, Vishal and myself met at around 8 PM to leave to Hyderabad and to all out surprise a special incident took place and my dear friend Vishal had a joyful mood throughout this tour. To know what happened with Vishal @ the bus stop read this until the end.

We left B'lore at around 9PM on 30^th April. Reached Hyderabad at around 8 in morning the next day.

As our first priority was to book for a cab i was on to it and my dear friend Maninder was on to his job searching a &*%$:-)

Finally got a cab and left to Nanded. That was 1 gr8 journey as u see it was around 270 KM from Hyd.

We had a good meal at some Dhaba on highway the road is damm good i can say.....Maninder suggested of Antakshari..and wow....though i didn't gave much contribution in it i had a gr8 time listening to some of the remixes Maninder was making of bollywood songs.....out of all i must say Jujahar has a gr8 voice .....(he is also part of our company singing troupe)..well end of that competition we came to know that Jujahar had actually created almost 3 song composition and sung....and we couldn't recognize it......any ways i didn't recognize almost all of his hindi classics... MAN oh MAN he has a gr8 talent in singing and thanks to his voice quality coz we had a single cassette in out car we played it almost 10 times and now it was his turn to fulfill our song request.....Apart from Antakshari i would like to mention a great debate on some Hindi words by Manpreet/Maninder v/s Bhajan. I still don't know the outcome of that debate :-)and by the way our own Vishal was the only one who had sung almost all bollywood romantic numbers....yes he still had a effect of what happened in on the bus stand in b'lore(wait for the climax). With all this fun it took all most a day to reach Nanded and reached there around 8:00 PM.

Had a stay in NRI-Nivas all thanx to Manpreet who had done this arrangement. After some great food at Langar, Langar is the term used in the Sikh religion for the free, vegetarian-only food served in a Gurdwara and eaten by everyone sitting as equals, including, non-Sikhs.

Now it was time for my first visit to any Gurdwara in my life yes....this was the first time in my life that i was visiting a Gurdwara ......All those who enter Gurdwara hall must remove their shoes and cover their heads before entering.

Takhat Sachkhand Sri Hazur Abchalnagar Sahib is the principal shrine at about half a Kilometer from the left bank of the river Godavari, Nanded, Maharashtra. This is about to complete 300 years in November 2008. And WOW what an architecture it has......even to my surprise photography was allowed inside such a main complex. They do Ardas (a Sikh prayer)3 times a day, after Ardas they open this special room which houses artifacts from the days of Guru Gobind Singh Ji and Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji.. (the Sangat are not allowed to touch or enter this room) The artifacts are brought out and shown to all, they show a Sword and Kalangi belonging to Guru Gobind Singh Ji and a sword belonging to Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji.

Next day morning at around 5 AM myself, Maninder and Vishal came to Gurdwara again for early morning prayers. We had our hands on making some parathas at a near by dhaba.

And following that the entire day we covered up all most all the Gurdwara's in Nanded.

• Gurdwara Sangat Sahib ; Gurdwara Mal Tekri Sahib ; Gurdwara Shikar GhatGurdwara Hira Ghat ; Gurdwara Nagina Ghat ;Gurdwara Mata Sahib Devan; Gurdwara Baba Banda Bahadur Ghat

I got a feeling that it was not in some part of Maharashtra but i am in some core areas of Punjab yes....u can see lots and lots Punjabi people and culture around here. Lots of Sikhs have got settled in Nanded and an equal number of tourist from around the world visit this place.

After the evening arathi @ around 9 PM had our dinner at Langar and left to Bidar which is in the next state (Karnataka). It is 200KM south of Nanded,. It was almost 6 hour journey and believe me the roads in this state were terrible and i did not find any road first of all , it was as if we were going in space in that dark night we were traveling in some space ship and all thanx to Bhajan for making that journey exciting by telling a ghost story. Finally reached Bidar at midnight at around 2 AM and all thx to sManpreet again for we had our rooms booked.

Next morning i.e on 3rd may got up and visited the Gurdwara called Nanak Chira. The site the Gurdwara is built on was once visited by Guru Nanak himself, on one of his many travels.

To the utter surprise of all, fountain of sweet, cool water gushed out of the hillside. The place hence known as 'Nanak-Jhira'. A beautiful Gurdwara has now been constructed by the side of the fountain. The water of the fountain is collected in a small 'Amrit-Khud' built in white marble.

Then at around noon headed back to hyd. and started exploring Hyd as much as we can...first we saw some tombs ....i am still wondering why the hell we went to visit those tombs when there were lots of other places to visit.....then finally i came to know that it was our driver who wanted to visit those tombs not any of us......

Went to Charminar the most famous landmark of Hyderabad and had a gr8 Biryani wow...that marked the end of our tour........"Jo Bole So Nihal...Sat Sri Akal"

Then started the longest journey of my life that i ever done 14 hrs from hyd-bangalore in a Toyota-Qualis backseat...reached Bangalore next day safe and sound @ around 10 AM...with all these sweet memories and got to know some of these gr8 friends .....who still in this modernized world and being in high profile IT industries keep faith in their love towards religion....

**Title courtesy : Gundeep (Jamseyspear).