Khalsa on Top of the Wall

There is a common phrase in Chinese, ‘bu dao chang cheng fei hao han’, which apparently means that ‘you are not a real man if you have never been to the great wall.’

I’m sure a majority of us have known the Great Wall just in pictures, on TV or under the feet of Akshay Kumar in ‘Chandni Chownk to China’, as a massive wall, certainly not like the one of our bedroom, running along the China border. And perhaps, the only good thing that we know about the Wall is that it’s Great, but we all had to find out the reason Why!

My weekends in China usually flew off with sleeping early morning on Saturdays, getting up late in afternoon and being a lazy bum throughout. These were the only days of respite from my hectic work schedule. Thus, it took us almost 2 months before me and my friends got three days of long blissful weekend, pertaining to some Chinese holiday and we could materialize our plans to visit the Great wall, lest our China visit would get itself entitled worthless.

Before I take you a step closer to the Great Wall, I’ll take a few lines to introduce the term Khalsa. I’m a Sikh by religion. The Khalsa is the reflection of a Sikh’s form, his identity. The Khalsa ("pure/devoted") is the recognition of every Sikh that follows the disciple and text from the holy book Shri Guru Granth Sahib.

It was a sunny Sunday morning. Nine of us, bubbling with concealed excitement walked into the doors of KFC for breakfast. The excitement was concealed for now because at that moment, it was more so the yawns that overshadowed the enthusiasm. The long route to the destination was covered by a train on subway line number 13, then a bus No.9 and finally a taxi @ 30 RMB per head, the face value of which started at 100 RMB per head before bargaining. All the planning was done by the one and only System Architect amongst us. If it would not have been him, we wouldn’t have had such a memorable trip.

It all started when the taxi guy had got us into a dilemma at a junction, where the road at the left led us to the Simatai Great wall, where we could go, climb up the great wall, click a few photographs, do boating etc. and come back. The right side of the junction led us to the Jinshanling great wall which was nothing but a starting point for climbing for enthusiasts who love to cover the distance from Jinshanling to Simatai on foot, on the wall. The leaders’ choice was evident as we headed towards the right, clearing off the dust suffocating beneath the wheels of Volkes Wagon. In around fifteen minutes we were standing at the feet of a mighty wall looking down at us, waiting for us to climb it.

‘Click’ echoed the digitalized sound from one side, and a similar sound struck from the other, as the cameras had a joyous time clicking one of the greatest wonders of the world. The 5000 km long wall, the only man made object to be visible from moon as a thin streak running all across the northern border of China, was under my feet, and Khalsa was on top of the wall… ‘Click’ went another Kodak moment…

The journey had begun, walking and walking. “Just 8 more miles to go” said a voice after sometime, “No, it’s 13 more” said another. A speculation was brewing up on the exact distance to be covered. If we had to believe the words of the taxi driver, the distance was around 10 miles to be covered in around 3 hours, lest we miss the last bus back to the city. “Just 10 of those big blocks to be crossed” were the words we had been hearing since quite some time now from the captain of the ship, but that 10 didn’t seem to start counting backwards anytime.

Massive, Huge, Mighty, Great, Big, must sound overused words by now. But unfortunately my dictionary runs short of words to describe the wonder I was walking on. I looked towards the right, and saw nothing but a wall till where my vision went. I turned towards the left, and saw the same structure running on the mountains. A high long thick fence of stones piled one over the other, which had taken 5 dynasties to be built. The first thought that would strike anyone would be, ‘who, on earth, was so idle to build just a wall over 5 dynasties? And this sounds practically impossible!’ But there it was... Standing strong over centuries, watching dynasties come and go, seasons arrive and depart and now tens of thousands of tourists climbing it up every year. And here was one of those tourists, who had been ordered by the captain to just walk, err… Climb.

Three hours had passed, without a sign of ‘Exit’ anywhere in the remotest corners of the wall. The steps were getting heavier now. Especially with the limited supply of water at our disposal. Just climbing up and down the mountains, without an escape, without a known destination, without any other life around except a few other half-dead bodies climbing along with us. Most of those were foreigners. A couple of one’s we got ourselves introduced to hailed from Malaysia and France respectively… That was the source of those first few Chinese words I learnt, which perhaps I cannot mention here for it might spoil the decorum of the article.

Then what we saw was the most special moment of the trip and more so for those two souls. He held her hand in his own, looked deep into her eyes with fervor as never before, and three beautiful words echoed on top of the great wall, “Wo Ay Ni” (I Love You)…

Another half an hour passed before we saw a person sitting in a security guard’s uniform on a chair at a distance. It appeared like the divine exit was finally here but seemed invisible, or hidden somewhere behind that skinny fellow in uniform. But the reality was a lot more dreadful. According to that guy, we had reached the end of Jinshanling great wall, and behind him was the starting of Simatai great wall. We had to pay 5 RMB more if we wanted to go further, else retreat back. No points of guessing that there wasn’t an exit there. So options were just limited, or apparently none. How far a distance was still to be covered still remained a big question mark. Could be anywhere between 5 to 10 miles. We moved on…

At the end of 5 hours, I was panting like a dog. One steep step of stair on the mountain was emerging out to be like a whole mountain in itself. An end was ascertained, but there was competition between two of us for who would end first, my life, or the wall. Walking down a stretch, I raised my head to see another big escalation to be covered. Without any options in hand, started climbing, step after step, on all my four limbs. But then, after a few steps I realized something. The wall had won the race. On the right side stood a board that read “Exit”. The greatness of the wall, personified….

The sun had begun to set now. It was a beautiful ball of fire sinking into a lake beside the great wall. We walked along on the pathway, partially revitalized now with the cold lemon drink tumbling down the throat. I could now realize the real value of a T Shirt I bought at the beginning of journey. Those pompous six words on the shirt…. “I have climbed the Great Wall”

A Month and a Half in Beijing

The Singhs had completed almost two months in Beijing. In the meantime I got acquainted with another Sikh guy and his friends studying there in some Medical college. He was a thin jovial fellow hailing from Ambala. He had been in Beijing for a long time now. Also, I was friends with a number of colleagues in my roommates’ team. I’ll introduce them all later.

By now, I had got used to the curious Chinese stares, all asking the same question, ‘Who is this Guy?’ Some of them voted in ‘Yes or No’ a number of times in their tiny brains before taking the courage to approach and ask in the little English, of whatever they knew. Whatever they asked, I could know the question and the reply was always ‘Indu’. That’s what they call India in China. ‘Awww… Indu’ came a relieved reply. Once or twice I replied ‘Indu’ even before they could complete the question. No matter if the question they were asking was something else. To my amazement, once, one of the Girls at a store thought that I was a Chinese from some other province. The conversation usually came to a dead end with the predator saying something in Chinese, and the Prey escaping with a grin and a five simple words, ‘Wo bu dong zhong wen’ and ‘Zaijian’ (means goodbye).

My lunch all these days used to be generally in the office cafeteria. The food was sometimes eatable, rest of the times to fill the stomach. Whatever I had was followed by a bar of chocolate to soothe the taste buds.

For the dinner, my roommates had somehow started accepting the idea of me burning the food until I gave up cooking. Not because I cooked badly, but because the Deepinder chef was too lazy to cook now.

Apart from a trainee, I was now an English teacher to my team in office. This idea was initiated by my mentor friend, Mr. ShenHong. Once in a week I conducted English classes for the members of my team. It used to be an hour and a half after the office of fun filled games and learning. We sang, danced, played games, and the best part was I got a chance to take test and evaluate my seniors, including my manager. The appraisal meetings, after all, are not just for them.

I had learned the Chinese counting by now and a few other simple words that helped me to buy stuff in market. Also, I sometimes used to carry a small English-Chinese –English dictionary to help me out on commodities. So, most of what used to be an array of meaningless drawings and erratic actions in any store, was now on the lips or under the finger pointing to the dictionary.

Here’s a brief of the little Chinese I knew by then…

Chinese Counting..

0 – lin

1 – e

2 – a

3 – sann

4 – szz

5 – wo

6 – liu

7 – chi

8 – ba

9 – jiu

10 – shrrre

For one alphabet they had five different kind of sounds. Eg. An a has five different sounds as a, a’, ‘a, a^, aa. Call me up sometime for the exact intonation because the sounds can make a difference. It sounds like some Indian raag if you speak them all in a sequence. These sounds matter a lot in the pronunciation. (Lest you call someone a cow when you intend to say beautiful girl).

No wonder, I earned the title of ‘Chinese Sardar’ from my roommates.

What Not to Do in a Kitchen

Quite unlike my work in India, where I used to stay in office till as late as 2 am, here, since I was on training, I normally used to be home by 7 or at the maximum 9 p.m. My roommates, however, had a tough project in hand. They usually came back after 10.

They say that necessity is the mother of all inventions and discoveries. And 'Chef Deepinder’ backs this fact for the reason that he was born and brought up in the hands of that necessity. Instead of ‘New Movies in Town’, my Google search results had evolved to ‘ Results 1 - 10 of about 31,400 for Recipe Pav Bhaji'. This was the beginning of a process that shattered my resolution to loose my few extra pounds.

That day, I came back home with a packet of buns from the store, and rang up my mom. “Mom! How many tomatoes??? Extra Spice??? Is one chutki salt enough??? Oh I think its burning! How do I know it’s cooked???” Phew!!!! finally it was. And, it was yummy! But the buns I had bought were a disappointment, as those were stuffed sweet buns and not the one’s we could have with the vegetable. Bread proved to be the closest replacement. It was all relished, or at least I think it was. The days went by with the Chef cooking and/or burning up Cauliflower, Potatoes, Pulses, Cabbage and so on… At many of instances, gtalk and yahoo messenger proved to be my savior to come clean out of some burning mess, with suggestions from my friends and folks.
My roommates said that the preparations were good. How true they were, that I’m still unsure! Rest assured, they surely loved the Chef’s specialty, Kheer, The Indian Rice Pudding.

We used to cook the vegetables with gravy. (Imagine a cauliflower/cabbage floating in soup). It was quite unusual, but there was no option because we didn’t get wheat flour in the market. Hence, all that we consumed was rice, the killer of my resolution I mentioned before. Rice in the morning, Rice in the noon time, and Voila! Rice again at night again. And not those Basmati we get in India here. The best of lot were some sticky version, cooked with equivalent amount of water as the rice (unlike double the amount of water as we add to cook the Indian rice). The head turner used to be when the Chinese used to eat those sticky balls of rice with chopsticks.

In all these experiments in the Kitchen, I can summarize a few words of wisdom as to what NOT to do in a kitchen.

1. Do NOT add turmeric power and red chilly powder with bare hands.
2. If you forget the first point then please remember not to rub those hands on your shirt or trousers and specifically your eyes.
3. If you miss this one too, then please remember to take off the red and yellow stained clothes and soak them in a bucketful of water.
4. Do not let the consumers know the method by which you cooked the food.
5. If you loose on the last point, then definitely don’t tell them that you had put excess of chilies and then later drained off the chilly water and added more plain water and then re-boiled the broth.
6. Do not put the cooking pan on a high flame. The food is tastier on a low flame.
7. The Most Important of all, DO NOT Chat or Watch a movie while you’re cooking. It’s almost a cinch that you’ll forget that the stove is on.

Staying in China we experimented with many things, including, Samosa, Pakodey, Cutlets etc. Liusu still wants to know how I cooked that delicious Indian Rice Pudding, Kheer. But I missed the real Indian cuisine, specially the Roti and the ‘Swad Maa ke Haathon Ka’. But undoubtedly, of all the things, what I missed the most was the heavenly Khraha Prashad.

Friends and Colleagues – Indu and Chinks

I dedicate this column to all the friends and colleagues, and a snapshot of a few experiences I shared with them. I’ll try to put this on in the order I met them all.

Vicky – This isn’t a guy. She was the girl responsible for the accommodation of all the Indian employees for Huawei. She was one girl who could understand and speak English as fluently as any Indian person. I don’t remember her Chinese name. She owns a part of my Thanks for making my stay at china memorable. Specially the first weekend when she took me for Ice Skating.

ShenHong a.k.a Mr.Steven Shen – My mentor, My friend, My Guide. My trip would have been impossible without him. Thank You Sir.

Zhang Jing Jing – Please pronounce the name as ‘Chang Jing Jing’. That’s how ‘zh’ is pronounced in Chinese. She was a girl in one of the banks where Anupam and Mandeep went to get the money exchanged on 14^th Feb. A tall girl with hair tied into a ponytail at one side of the head. She wore a top in one of her ears and a hanging in the other. This was my unsuccessful attempt for the Valentines’ Date. Its not that she wasn’t free, but I backed off. We ended up as ‘Just (SMS) Friends’.

Wenguifung a.k.a. Tony – A young Chinese dude. Held the best fluency in English. He and I had one thing in common. We both were looking for a girlfriend. I used to treat him like a naughty student in my English class, until I came to know that he’s heading one of the teams there.

Zhaozaoming a.k.a. Milk a.k.a. Amma – It took me a week to get her Chinese name right. And this is one name that I, and for that matter none of the Huawei Indian employees can forget. She’s the most famous Chinese tester (for all the wrong reasons), whom every developer tries his best to evade. Her English is a sum total of a few ‘difficult’ and ‘meaningless’ words from Chinese-English dictionary. For instance, she always used to say me and one of my friends ‘You are a bad actor’. I couldn’t know what it means until I saw it in her dictionary. The meaning is too weird to be disclosed. Another time, she said ‘I have pain in my breast’. Before any of the naughty minds get to work, I should tell you that it was just a minor stomach ache she held as a reason to escape a dinner with me.

Liusu a.k.a. Suer – The sweetest Chinese girl, my best English student and my Chinese teacher who left me heartbroken the very first day when she told me that she’s married. A very helpful and happy going girl.

Surinder Bhai – ‘Tera lakk patla patang ni tu phook mari udd jayein’ He’s like a stick walking on the road.

Rejesh Madi – The guy with the golden smile. Anupam’s bestest friend, and the first target for all his mischief and mimics. Shy, Silent, Sweet…. Heyy.. He’s a guy… The title of ‘Madi’ was given by Anupam, no one knows the reason why.

Mohammad Rafi – The angry young forgetful man. Very particular about what he eats. His favorite dialogues, ‘Acha Aisa hai kya?’, ‘Chalenge Kya?’, ‘Karenge Kya’, ‘Khayenge kya’, ‘Halal Rahega kya?. Not a day passed without one of his fireball questions. For instance, one of our colleagues was once telling us about his experience at bungee jumping. He was telling us how his feet were tied up and he was pushed off the cliff. Here’s comes Rafi’s fireball : ‘Acha to Rassi ko kasskar bandha tha kya?’

Nahi bhai… aise hi chorh diya tha use marne ke liye!!!!

Vishaal – Oye Lucky Lucky Oye! The cool hot headed hard working Punjabi. Me, Rafi and him had a good time together at the office.

The list is long. I’ll introduce the rest as they come in the story…

First Week in Beijing

My first week in China was not uneventful. I had been allotted a four room apartment by the company. And on a first come first serve basis, I dug in my name flag into the master bedroom. In one corner of my heart I wished that the other rooms stayed vacant for the rest of my stay here. Food was indeed a grave problem. My first friend in the city was my mentor, Mr. ShenHong. The lean fellow backed up with a plethora of work experience greeted me with a benevolent smile. His eyes reached my turban time and again and retreated back. I could guess the question going on in his mind but I waited for him to ask himself. And it came across at the lunch time while I was fighting with my fingers to hold the two pieces of wooden sticks that had been handed over to me to eat rice and noodles.

“Why are you wearing this Hat?” and in an instant I replied with a smile. A smile reflecting that my desire had been fulfilled.

“It’s my culture, my religion. It’s called Turban. It’s a symbol of my religion as a respect”

Most of the Chinese don’t have a religion. So another tough part of the endeavor was to explain what religion is.

After the lunch, we went back to our workstation and I opened wikipedia at his place to give him the page for ‘Sikh’. He said he would read it later after the sleep time. Did I hear it right? Sleep time? This was not a government office in India, so what was this sleep time? As these thoughts were rushing through my mind, the lights dimmed, he pulled out a thin foldable mattress from under the table, undid his shoes and lay down comfortably on it. It was the ‘official’ rest time for the Chinese Huawei Office. The idea was welcome with open arms, and in no time I was dozing on my chair. My mentor kept his word of reading the wikipedia after we woke up at 2.

My wish of staying alone in the apartment faced a silent death in a week’s time, and I don’t regret that it did. My roommates, a guy from Ranchi, who looked like a bachelor but actually wasn’t, and a Sikh from Bhopal, who looked married, but wasn’t stepped in with bags full of the usual stuff I mentioned before. I made them some soup ( they still curse me for the pathetic welcome syrup I had given them), and I stood staring as the kitchen shelves found some occupancy on top of them with all kinds of spices and Pulses. The first and only question that came into my mind after I learned that Mandeep (the sikh guy) was a vegetarian was, “You’re gonna have a tough time here. What are you gonna do?” to which Anupam (the other guy) replied as he placed a big packet of Coriander powder in one of the cupboards, “Arey Hero! Khud se banayenge khana. Tu tension na le. Jab tak rahenge bindas rahenge” (Dude! We’ll cook the food ourselves. Don’t worry. We’ll have a merry time together) How couldn’t I worry! I did not know how to cook. I wept in the kitchen that night for it was really a hard work to cut onions with dry eyes. But the Pulav they cooked was good indeed. The Sikh had his first good dinner in China. The very next day we were joined by the fourth roommate. A senior person in Mandeep’s and Anupam’s team.

Me and Mandeep were the opposite ends of a rope that seldom had consensus on something. He was a silent Amritdhari (Baptised) sikh with Big Daddy advises. My mom was happy to know I had a roommate so close to our religion. It’s as they say in Gurbani (The God’s Verses) “Nirbhao hoye bhajo bhagwan, Sadh sangat mil keeno daan”, means, ‘Fearlessly chant the name of the God, this gift is given in the company of the holy people’. Anupam was a happy going guy who could mix up with anyone. Joe Sir (the senior) were as much a friend to us as anyone else. He had been to China a few number of times before. All in all, we roomates complimented each other. Joe Sir and Anupam were my Guru’s on the tips and tricks to woo a Chinki. It was the 14th Feb that day when we four were together for the first time. Another of my ‘Single’ status Valentines’, no matter how hard I tried to find a date, and had almost fixed one. But…

The next day while coming down the stairs with my mentor at the lunch time, he suddenly raised his hand and uttered ‘Deepinder, Look!’, as he pointed out to a Turbaned person walking at a distance, ‘There’s another Sikh’. ‘Yes sir, He’s my roommate’, I replied with a smile.’

The First Step

“Ni Hao”
It’s very collegial for a Sikh to greet an official colleague with a formal ‘Hello’ or Indian traditional ‘Namaste’ apart from the revered ‘Sat Sri Akal’ but the former two words are quite a strange bit of piece to be used in his day to day life.

Evening, 5th February ’09, a young Sikh walked down the ramps of the Beijing airport with 40 kgs of luggage bags which for sure had to catch the attention of the exit security. The luggage scan could reveal nothing but a stroller dumped with a few packets of packaged food including Biryani, Halva, Dal and Rajma Chawal, the MDH Gola Gappa masala, pickles and a few bottles of hair fixer and lots of sweaters and clothes apart from the other insignificant stuff. If that baffles you, then it would be worth highlighting that in a normal case, an Indian is seen bringing in bags filled with lots of the Indian Curry masalas, raw Pulses, Wheat fluor etc. and very few clothes.

This was the first time I was traveling abroad and that too to a place where I knew no one at all. The month before the travel had given me enough nausea with the friends and relatives all pouring in with advises and warning me of the definite difficulties I’m going to face. “They don’t understand English”, “You won’t get to eat anything. Good that you’ll shed some extra pounds for sure”, “I heard that they eat all kinds of meat including Dogs and Donkeys”. But, I, inspired by the pages of ‘Who Moved My Cheese’ walked on with a few words in Chinese scribbled on a piece of paper which meant, ‘No Meat Please, Chicken is OK’. I sent my taste buds on an unpaid leave in the wake of Food Recession. A few other placards included ‘Wo Bu Dong Zhong Wen’ meaning ‘I don’t know Chinese’ (I had learned to pronounce this one) and a few printed on my mind like ‘Mei Nv’, means Beautiful Girl (Please ask for right pronunciation from a Chinese colleague or you’ll end up calling her a Cow, like I did for the first four months. No Wonder I couldn’t get a date).

I had always heard that Chinese are very friendly people. As this Sikh, embellished in a Red turban, walked down the airport corridor, he was greeted by series of stares from a good number of Chinese eyes who moved along or across him. I smiled at them, and quite apparently, they smiled back at me. I was well prepared for this part of the story during my visit. Probably because my Google search for ‘Gurudwara in Beijing’ had returned no results, so I assumed that I was going to be a newbie to the little eyes that scanned me from head till toe. A fluffy foreigner with thick facial hair and a strange looking Hat covering his head would be a feast to the rather skinny Chinese, who genetically don’t really have much of facial hair.


To be continued...