Amritsar

The city dates from the 1570s, when Guru Ram Das, the fourth Sikh Guru, acquired land here and began excavating a pool — the Amrit Sarovar, the pool of nectar, which gave Amritsar its name. His successor, Guru Arjan, built the Harmandir Sahib at its centre and installed the Adi Granth there in 1604. A settlement of traders and craftsmen grew around the tank, organised into the walled katras that still shape the old city, and it became Punjab's commercial capital on the road between Delhi and Lahore.

Afghan invaders damaged the temple repeatedly in the 18th century. Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who took Amritsar in 1802 and ruled a Sikh empire from Lahore, rebuilt it in marble and copper from 1809 and overlaid the sanctum with gold leaf in 1830, and strengthened Gobindgarh Fort to guard the city. The British annexed Punjab in 1849. On 13 April 1919 troops under Brigadier General Reginald Dyer fired on a crowd penned inside Jallianwala Bagh, killing hundreds; the massacre became a turning point in the independence movement.

Partition in 1947 cut the city off from Lahore, barely 50 kilometres away, and turned it into a border town. Its Muslim population left, refugees arrived from West Punjab, and the trade routes that had sustained it were severed. The Sikh separatist insurgency of the 1980s centred on the Golden Temple, which the Indian army entered in June 1984, an event that still shapes Punjabi politics. Since the 1990s the city has grown steadily on pilgrimage, agriculture and trade, and the approach to the temple was rebuilt as a broad sandstone plaza in recent years.

Amritsar's identity is inseparable from Sikh practice. Hymns from the Guru Granth Sahib are sung in the Harmandir Sahib from before dawn until late at night, broadcast across the complex; the scripture is carried in procession to and from the Akal Takht each day. Seva, voluntary service, is visible everywhere — visitors wash dishes, peel vegetables, sweep marble and hand out water, and the langar embodies the principle that everyone eats the same food sitting in the same rows.

Beyond the temple, the city is thoroughly Punjabi. Bhangra and giddha are danced at weddings and at Baisakhi, the dhol is the sound of any celebration, and Punjabi and Hindi are heard alongside the Gurmukhi script on every sign. Hindu and Sikh families are closely intertwined here, and the Durgiana Temple and the gurdwaras draw from overlapping congregations. Wrestling, kabaddi and cricket are all followed, and Punjabi music from the diaspora circulates back into the city.

Memory is a large part of local culture. Jallianwala Bagh, the Partition Museum and the events of 1984 are discussed openly, and many families still have relatives on the other side of a border they cannot easily cross. The evening ceremony at Attari–Wagah, theatrical and loudly patriotic, is part of the same inheritance. Visitors are treated with considerable warmth, and invitations to eat are frequent and sincere.

About 1.1 million people lived in the city at the 2011 census, with more in the surrounding district. The economy rests on pilgrimage and tourism, on the agriculture of the Majha plain around it, and on trade and small manufacturing — textiles, shawls, carpets, food processing and the printing of religious books. Government offices, colleges and hospitals employ many, and remittances from relatives in Canada, Britain and Australia support a great many households.

The rhythm of the day follows the temple. The first recitation begins in the early hours and pilgrims arrive before sunrise; the bazaars open in the mid morning; trade continues until late evening, and the temple complex is at its busiest and most atmospheric after dark. Weekends, festivals and school holidays bring enormous numbers of Indian visitors, and hotel rooms near the old city fill quickly.

Most residents live in the crowded lanes of the walled city or in the newer colonies spreading east and south, and the contrast between the two is sharp. Current concerns are those of Punjab generally: falling groundwater, the cost and sustainability of wheat and rice farming, drug addiction among young men, winter air pollution worsened by crop stubble burning, and the steady emigration of graduates. Border closures interrupt what little formal trade with Pakistan there is, and the city has never fully recovered the commercial position it lost in 1947.

Amritsar is one of the great eating cities of north India. Its signature is the Amritsari kulcha, a leavened flatbread stuffed with spiced potato, paneer or onion, slapped onto the wall of a tandoor and served blistered and dripping with butter beside chole, chickpeas in a dark gravy, and a tamarind chutney. Breakfast is often chole bhature or puri with chana, and thick lassi in a tall steel tumbler.

Punjabi home cooking is well represented in the dhabas of the walled city: dal makhani simmered overnight, sarson da saag with makki di roti in winter, paneer dishes, and stuffed parathas cooked on a griddle. Amritsari fish, river fish coated in gram flour and carom seed and deep fried, is a local speciality, and tandoori meats are widely eaten outside the temple precinct, where all food is vegetarian. The langar itself serves dal, vegetables, roti and kheer.

Sweets and preserved foods are a serious local trade. Shops sell jalebi fried in the street, barfi and pinni, and firni, a set rice pudding served in clay bowls. The city is known across India for its papad and wari, sun-dried lentil crisps and spiced dumplings made in courtyards in the old town. Milky masala chai is drunk all day, and sugarcane juice and sweet lassi are the standard answer to the summer heat.