Delhi: Gurudwara Bangla Sahib Tour with Langar Meal

The kitchen is the point

Every Sikh gurudwara runs a langar — a free kitchen, open to anyone, where everyone sits on the floor in rows and eats the same food regardless of religion, caste or income. Bangla Sahib's serves somewhere between ten and twenty thousand meals on an ordinary day, and more on festivals, and it has never charged anyone anything.

You will go into that kitchen. Rolling rotis on the line, stirring dal in pots you could bathe in, washing steel plates in the courtyard — visitors are put to work if they want to be, and it is the part of this tour people talk about afterwards.

The gurudwara

It was a bungalow belonging to Raja Jai Singh — hence bangla — where the eighth Sikh Guru, Har Krishan, stayed in 1664. Smallpox and cholera were sweeping Delhi. The Guru gave shelter and water from the house well to the sick, and died of the disease himself at the age of seven.

The water from that well became the sarovar, the tank beside the main hall, and people still carry it home in bottles. The golden dome above the shrine is visible from Connaught Place.

Inside, the Guru Granth Sahib is read continuously and musicians sing the shabad. You can sit for as long as you like.

What is expected of you

Cover your head — scarves are handed out free at the entrance. Remove your shoes at the counter, which is also free and staffed by volunteers. Wash your feet in the shallow channel on the way in. No smoking, no alcohol, no photography inside the prayer hall.

Women and men enter the same way and sit in the same hall.

Included

Private car with driver, a guide who will explain Sikh practice as you go, and the langar meal itself — which is free to everybody, always, and which your guide will make sure you actually eat rather than just watch.