TRAVELMAN INDIA: I Volunteer in the Kitchen of the Largest Sikh Gurdwara in Delhi, India.

I volunteered in the kitchen of the largest Sikh Gurdwara in Delhi. Someone told me that it’s the second largest Sikh place of worship in India, with the Golden Temple being the largest. One thing’s for sure, they have one of the largest kitchens I’ve ever seen...

(You can check out my previous post if you want to see the outside of the Gurdwara)
https://steemit.com/travel/@travelman/travelman-india-a-trip-to-the-gurudwara-bangla-sahib-the-largest-sikh-temple-in-delhi

Raghu, the Madpackers Hostel Employee, took our group into the kitchen at the Gurudwarva (I found two different spellings online) to volunteer for an hour or so. It was shockingly large. I felt like I was in the Sikh version of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, even though we didn’t take a scary boat ride down a curry river to get there (they really need one of those).

We walked past the dining room first. I estimate crowds worse than Donald Trump’s PR staff so I’m not sure how many people were in the large room, but it was a lot, 200-400? A lot of people, with a kitchen big enough to feed all of them...

Once past the dining room, we entered the kitchen. This guy’s not Willy Wonka, but he was cool...

It was mesmerizing. My dad could cook up a lot of fried veggies and noodles in these woks.

****Truth be told, these men are only 18 inches tall****

That’s a lot of curry...

Raghu sat us down at the chapati rolling area. We sat on the ground and rolled the dough balls that another volunteer tossed to us.

The Indian woman next to me communicated through gestures and what she thought may be English words. She instructed me to roll the dough into a flat pancake and then place it on the stack of the other pancakes. Easy enough, right?

I had a bit of a problem, with the rolling. I felt like I was going to get fired from my volunteer position, or at least transferred to another department that didn’t require rolling pin skills. The Indian woman would take a dough ball and create a perfect circle of dough within three rolls and 2.8 seconds.

I created an amoeba-like, unevenly rolled, glob after two minutes of rolling. The Indian woman showed me again how to properly roll the dough into a circle. I rolled another thin zero with a foot-like section sticking out of it. The woman smiled and shook her head...

The other volunteers appeared to be picking up on the rolling faster. I feared becoming known as that volunteer who couldn’t roll a proper chapati, they’d talk about me and laugh around the curry cauldron for weeks. I was determined to get it right. The woman started a dough ball for me, rolling it into a tiny hockey puck, flipped it in flour and dropped it on my rolling board for me to finish. I rolled a rectangle.

Finally, I was able to roll a decent circle-ish shape every second or third doughball. Every time I rolled a good one I hoped for the woman to give me a nod of approval or a pat on the back. She wasn’t interested in my limited success. At some point she tried to ask me questions. I couldn’t understand her. I did that thing where you just say “Yes,” hoping it satisfies them. I don’t think “yes” was the right answer because she seemed to give up on me after that.

I felt like tapping her on the shoulder after rolling the perfect chapati circle in three rolls, “Good? Huh? Pretty good, right?”

I craved her approval. I wanted to be known as useful. I wanted the doughball guy to give me an approving wink as he threw another doughball on my ever growing doughball pile... I was getting a bit behind.

Mercifully, Raghu gave me a tap on the shoulder, we were moving on. I felt like I was a politician on an election photo op. My team takes me in, has me roll enough dough for my staff photographer to get pics for the papers, and then I’m off- on my way to make a back room deal with lobbyists representing makers of a new tobacco, oil, stem cell cereal for kids.

Before we left, some of the volunteers gave flipping chapatis on the grill a try. I didn’t want to be responsible for any mamings, so I stood back and took pics.

Travelman log, day 225 Today is our free day in Yoga Class, so I’m sitting in a cafe writing. !steemitworldmap 28.6285 lat 27.7095 long . I volunteer in the Kitchen of the largest Sikh Gurdwara in Delhi, d3scr 398 Followers and counting, 1.150.8 steam earned. Rep 59.3

Travel in, travel on...

Travelman out.