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GURU KA LANGAR

The golden temple is a sikh gurudwara located in Amritsar, India. A langar is a common kitchen located in many gurudwaras. The food served particularly in The Golden Temple is known as Guru Ka Langar. The food is served in these langars regardless of the background of an individual. The langar as a tradition was started by Guru Nanak Dev Ji (the first Sikh Guru) and then was further established by Shri Guru Amar Das Ji ( the third Sikh Guru) at Goindwal. The langar served in these gurudwaras is free for all and works on donations which may be in form of money or food. The institution of langar was systemized by Guru Angad Singh ( the second Sikh Guru) so that visitors could get a free simple meal in communal seating.

Information
Name Guru Ka Langar
Location Amritsar

HOW IT WORKS

Langar, The Golden Temple, Amritsar

The langar at The Golden Temple, Amritsar serves its first meal of the day at 5 a.m comprising of tea and snacks. The kitchen staff only take a break between 4:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. in the working of  24 hours. They begin their day with serving around 50,000 cups of tea along with biscuit or bread. The serving further is continued by breakfast, lunch and dinner where on a daily basis around 40,000 visitors are fed and on special occasions or weekends the number reaches around 1,00,00 people. The food include lentils, rice, vegetables, roti and kheer (daily). There are two halls that has the capacity to feed around 5000 diners at a time. The food is served by the volunteers which is consumed by the visitors while sitting on the floor. All men, women and children eat together and before entering they have to take off their shoes and their head should be covered particularly. The visitors take their plates and cups and sit on an empty spot found in the rows on the floor. All the people eat together to symbolize that everybody is equal. The visitors generally consume their food quickly so that next set of visitors can also have their food. The visitors are also provided with the “prashad” as the holy offering. After dining the utensils are also washed by the volunteers who particularly wash every article 5 times in order to maintain hygiene and then utensils are dried and made available for the next set of visitors.

CULTURAL ASPECT

There are langars at gurudwaras across the world but the one located at the golden temple is the most grand. The langar works on the teachings of Sikhism which include equality, sharing, regardless of the age, gender, religion or socio-economic status of the visitors. Langars help in reflecting the Sikh ideology as they treat everybody equal and they do not hesitate in doing any form of work while serving at langars from stacking the shoes in a rack to cleaning the dishes. The Sikhs believe in the concept of “kar-seva” that is the service provided by them in the gurudwara. It is a way of serving the religion/community as believed by the Sikhs. Sharing a meal sitting in a Pangat is an act of piety for a Sikh. Men, women and children equally contribute in the working of the langar where in men handle most of the heavy tasks, women focus on the details of the preparation of food and children help in serving and cleaning the dishes. The food which is served has to be blessed and therefore small amount of each and everything is taken by the volunteers beside the Guru Granth Sahib and there it is first ceremonially offered. When the kirpan touches the food, the blessing is ritualized. This ritual symbolizes that Guru first tastes the food and also transforms the food as the food becomes “God-intoxicated’. The Sikhs believe in eating before visiting the Guru as the idea behind a langar according to Sikh faith is for people of all caste and religion to eat together before they visit Guru. The tradition at langar has managed to survive for centuries in the same manner maintaining it’s form and structure.

SOCIAL ASPECT

The Sikhs throughout the world feel proud that they get a chance to welcome and feed outsiders at gurudwara. This institution has served the community in different ways by ensuring that even women and children get a chance to serve mankind. The women participate by preparing food and children help by serving the food. The langar has also played an important role in teaching the manners of eating and sitting in a community situation. The system followed at langar promotes equality by feeding each and every visitor irrespective of their caste, creed, race, religion, etc. They all sit and eat together and are served by various people. It also eradicates the division of society on the basis of money and power for an example in the 15th century King Akbar had food in the langar along with the ordinary people and recently the Prime Minister of India also had food there. They being the highest authority were treated in the same way as the other visitors.

POLITICAL ASPECT

The langar at The Golden Temple is generally not interrupted by political issues but in the history of Golden Temple it has been interrupted twice. Once in the 18th century because of Mughal invasion and the other time during the operation Blue Star in 1984. In the current times langar is facing contemporary issues such as Goods and Services Tax, i.e, GST. The budget now has increased because of the recent amendments in the tax system in India. The budget of langar which used to be 30 crores is now assumed to be increased by 10 crores because of the policies of the government. However there is no sort of political intervention in the functioning of the langar.

ECONOMICAL ASPECT

A langar works on the concept of “Wand Ke Chhako” which means sharing with others. The concept was given by first Sikh Guru - Guru Nanak Dev Ji. A Sikh is obliged by religion to donate 1/10th of his earnings for community’s welfare therefore people visiting gurudwaras donate accordingly. The money which is received by the gurudwara is used for running and maintaining the gurudwara and the langar. Sometimes people even donate food stuff like milk, lentils, vegetables, flour, rice, utter, etc. The langar is not dependent on any sort of professional catering service instead is run by sewadars or volunteers. People volunteer for cutting, cleaning, serving, and preparing the food for people at langar. Certain people even decide to bear a day’s expense at gurudwara or a day’s breakfast/lunch/dinner, but een for that they have to wait for weeks since there is already a queue for it. Gurudwaras even put a notice regarding the unavailability of a particular product so that people can donate that instead of donating money. The daily requirement of langar kitchen includes 16 quintals of vegetables, 16 quintals of pulses, 30-35 quintals of flour, 14 quintals of rice and 7.50 quintals of dry milk powder (for kheer). To reach this requirement the per day budget of the kitchen is 11 lakhs and on weekends and special occasions ( diwali, gurupurab) the budget reaches 16 lakhs. Among the 11 lakhs around 4 lakhs is only used for ghee. However, the money is required only for buying the material as all the work is done by sewadars or volunteers.