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.