Punjab

Punjab means five rivers, and the honest version is that Partition left India three of them. That arithmetic sits under everything here. You come for Harmandir Sahib, and the advice is simple: go twice. Once at night, when the gold sits in black water and the parikrama is nearly empty. Once before dawn for the palki sahib, when the Guru Granth Sahib is carried in on a palanquin and there is still room to sit down and listen. Eat in the langar both times. It is not a tourist experience — it is how the place works, feeding tens of thousands a day off volunteers scrubbing steel plates in the back. Jallianwala Bagh is five minutes away and has been renovated into something brighter and easier than it ought to be. Go anyway, and read the well. Wagah, at the border, is a leg-throwing drill performed to a stadium of flags. Understood as theatre it is fascinating. Turn up expecting solemnity and you will be baffled. Beyond Amritsar, Patiala has the Qila Mubarak and a court culture that produced its own turban style and its own gharana of music, and it sees a fraction of the visitors.