It is a kitchen that defies all proportions. The aluminium pots are so huge they dwarf you completely. The ladles are the size of rowing oars. The trays have the circumference of trampolines and the jugs are as capacious as buckets.
Pilgrims visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
The blazing fire under the leviathan pots is stroked by turbaned men with sticks as long as flagpoles. A mountain of potatoes waits to be peeled for the afternoon meal and flour sacks, taking up half the room, wait to be kneaded into dough.
This is no ordinary kitchen. This is the kitchen of the holiest Sikh shrine, the Golden Temple or Harmandir Sahib which serves meals to more than 40,000 people any given day. On a Sikh religious holiday however, the number can cross 100,000, making it the largest community kitchen of the world.
The meals, or langar as they are called, are served in large halls to everyone free, irrespective of one's faith, caste, race, colour or creed. Everyone sits cross-legged with heads covered on the floor in long rows to eat together. Here you will find neither VIPs nor untouchables, the two categories that unfortunately remain deeply interwoven into the Indian social fabric. At a langar you come with no identity. This underscores the basic Sikh tenet that preaches the essential sameness of everybody.
The Langar hall of the Golden Temple.
Hindu temples at best offer a prasad (consecrated offering) which is usually a mishmash of sweetmeats, coconut parings and baked rice. But the idea of serving full sit-down meals at their places of worship is unique to Sikhism. The idea of the langar was initiated by Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, and later established as a religious ideal by the third Guru, Amar Das, in the 16th century.
It is said that Guru Amar Das was so particular about the langar that when the Mughal Emperor Akbar came to visit him he refused to meet until Akbar had had the langar. A famous painting depicts Akbar sitting down for a meal with everybody else.
Today all Gurudwaras (Sikh temples), around the world follow this practice. But the Golden Temple, which attracts more visitors than even the Taj Mahal, has to make special arrangements to run its gargantuan kitchen. Thankfully, generous donations from Indian Sikhs and the diaspora of devotees make sure the provisions never run dry.
An average of 10,000 kilogrammes of wheat, 2,500kg of cereals, 1,000kg of rice, 5,000 litres of milk, 1,000 kg of sugar and 500kg of ghee (clarified butter) are used everyday for meals. Manning the kitchen is not a battalion of professional cooks but an army of volunteers working to earn spiritual merit. Rendering service is one of the tenets of Sikhism and there is no better way to do it than serving tired devotees at the faith's holiest gurudwara.
Therefore from the cooking of meals to the washing of utensils, everything is done by the pilgrims themselves. Ironically, the work that many merit-seeking pilgrims cheerfully line up to do in the kitchen is work they would shirk from in their own homes, considering it too lowly and beneath their status. Especially men, who would never be caught washing dishes at home. But at the wash counters here, shirtsleeves rolled up, they enthusiastically scrub pile after pile of dirty plates.
In the Golden Temple Kitchen too many cooks do not spoil the broth, but instead make for one smooth operation. The division of labour is efficient and is best exemplified by the way that roti (Indian flat bread) roti is made.
A gaggle of women are in charge of the roti-making in one large corner. Some knead the dough, the others fashion it into small round balls, another group flattens them and passes them on to women who slap them around their palms before deftly smacking them onto a large heated pan. A man with a long iron spatula pokes them until they swell up with air. The rotis are then put in a basket, ready to be transported into the dining hall.
But to keep up with the growing number of visitors, an automatic roti-making machine is also pressed into service simultaneously.
It must be said, however, that it is not easy to maintain the best hygiene standards in the kitchen. Food is exposed to the elements — the brewing pots are lidless, with curries often dripping to the floors. But the langar is considered holy and it is so delicious that no one ever notices or complains.
Cooking in the kitchen is a huge undertaking.