Langar at Sis Ganj- An Observation
‘ V aheguru Vaheguru Vaheguru’ and a pair of hands stretched for a piece of bread. Those wrinkled hands have the skin sunken under the hollow between the bones and the nerves protrude through the skin just enough to show that the man is famished. Then if you move to see his face, his gleaming eyes would tell you that it must have been a while since his last meal. The seva goes on mechanically, plate after plate, a serving spoon pours down some daal , another one khichdi , yet another sabji . Then somebody comes chanting ‘rotivahegururotivahegururotivahguru’, and some hands welcome it, some join together in gratitude, and some cross each other and separate indicating the roti is not needed. The buckets come and the buckets go, they hang above in the air and are never put down. The heads don’t allow the helpers to make any contact between the serving spoon and the plates; they say it would make the whole bucket of sabji ‘ jhoota’ . A man stands along the entrance to the langar , he’s ...