[ speaking punjabi ] ♪ [ speaking punjabi ] [ horn ] ♪ ♪

[ speaking punjabi ] ♪ i took a walk through this beautiful world ♪ ♪ felt the cool rain on my shoulder ♪ ♪ found something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha, la, la, la, la, la ♪ sha, la, la, la, la, la ♪ sha, la, la, la, la, la ♪ sha, la, la, la, la ♪ [ train whistle ]

♪ [ train whistle ] >> reggie: this house came to be built by dr. blick, who was in the east india company service. my grandfather came to be nominated to the body called the consulate state, which used to be a part of british india. >> anthony: it was another time. one that few still remember. [ train whistle ] the india before partition. when these rooms, this house, was part of the seat of power. >> reggie: i had the privilege of being born in this house, upstairs. >> anthony: this was the maharaja's bed. i'm in his chambers at present. >> reggie: and it was the routine that we'd all parade up

into my grandfather's room to wish him good morning, and then we'd all come down for breakfast. >> anthony: the walls tell a story. many stories. >> reggie: there used to be a lot of animosity. there were two very divided classes, in india. so there was a lot of tension. between the ruled, and the rulers. but that was a different time, you know. now i think back and it's more like a fairy tale. ♪ [ horn ]

[ tires screeching ] ♪ >> anthony: day one in northern india, near the pakistan border. [ horn ] this is amritsar, the indian punjab's largest city. [ tires screeching ] population, about a million. this is a part of india i've never seen, a place i've always been curious about, home to some pretty legendary cuisine. in amritsar they have a saying -- the best food isn't cooked in people's homes. [ tires screeching ] [ horn ] you find it on the streets. ♪ punjab oh you up in punjab peace to my dougie fam' in -- and tony you a og, just give probably got fat off ♪ ♪ the roti don't take tension don't be fussy sit back relax ♪ ♪ have a cold glass of lassi ♪ >> anthony: punjabis are known

for their adventurous spirit. as brave warriors who spread throughout the world bringing great food with them. ♪ don't worry 'bout no traffic the elements move and weave around like it's magic ♪ ♪ peace to hot sugar on the beat good looking beats sample sounds of my mom at home cooking ♪ >> anthony: in fact, much of the good stuff we refer to simply as indian food comes from here. ♪ mmm like naan in my mouth peace to my brother tony no doubt golden temple amritsar helluva city ♪ >> anthony: the punjab of the early 20th century saw some of the most violent resistance to british rule. and when the british finally cashed out in 1947, they carved off a huge piece. what is now, pakistan. and it remains a potential

flashpoint for conflict. but that's easy to forget when you first smell the food. there we go. kesar da dhaba. dhaba meaning side of the road food stall. and there are, like countless dhabas to choose from in this town, but this one, is legendary. see tony eat vegetables. and like it! you eat around this part of the world, punjab in particular, get used to eating a lot of vegetarian. chickpeas, dal -- and india is one of the few places on earth where, even for me, that's not a burden. oh what's that? oh i'll take that yeah right here my good man. mmm. that's good saag. in the punjab, meat, or no meat, you're almost guaranteed a free-for-all of intense colors, flavors, and spices.

unlike some of the joyless vegetarian restaurants in my sad experience, vegetables here are actually spicy, all taste different, different textures, and served with extraordinarily good bread. it's got this multi-tiered crispy on the outside, chewy in the middle. it's a whole different experience. if this was what vegetarianism meant in most of the places that practice it in the west, i'd be at least half as much less of a dick about the subject. look hippie, if you made bread this good, i might eat at your restaurant. mmm. ♪ ♪ around here, one of the first things you notice that's different from the rest of india - turbans.

everywhere. the symbol of self-respect, bravery, and spirituality for sikh men. amritsar is the home, the spiritual center of the sikh faith. the world's fifth largest and maybe most misunderstood religion. in the heart of amritsar stands the majestic golden temple, the sikh equivalent of the vatican. sikhs are fundamentally against any caste system, believers in religious tolerance. but they are just as fundamentally war-like when it comes to defending their principles and what they see as their territory. >> man: welcome to golden temple. >> anthony: thank you. today is a gurpurab, one of the

most auspicious days of the sikh calendar. pilgrims from all over the world come to worship, walk the perimeter, and bathe in the holy pool. all are welcome, of any faith or caste. to remove their shoes, wash their feet, cover their heads, and take part in a simple meal. ♪ ♪ [ speaking punjabi ] >> anthony: this is the langar. a free vegetarian meal served to many thousands of visitors from

every walk of life, every day of the year. they serve sixteen hours a day? >> donwat singh: sixteen hours a day. >> anthony: for how many years? continuously? >> donwat singh: three hundred years. >> anthony: three hundred years. everyone doing the cooking, the serving, the washing of thousands and thousands of metal plates and utensils are volunteers. the sound is extraordinary. >> donwat singh: we have a teaching that everyone should serve. all three things, money, mind, and body. >> anthony: right. >> donwat singh: should be served to other people. free of cost. and that's what we do. >> anthony: walking me through it all today, donwat singh. now - for a religion that's so concerned with tolerance, where does the grand punjab military

tradition come from? because it's a very very powerful one. >> donwat singh: yes. so powerful people. so hardworking people. every sikh you see, if he's baptized, he wears a small sword. and our prophet when we get baptized, he says you must protect yourself, you must protect others, and you must protect your country. so that makes us what we are. ♪ don't you get the one of those travel sites? they tell you that, but when you book at hilton.com, you get the price match guarantee. so if you find your room at a lower rate, hilton is like... we're gonna match that rate and give you an extra 25% off. what would travel sites do if you found a better price?

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let's do the work. (music throughout) >> anthony: morning. the smoke from countless burning fields covers amritsar in a thick haze.

the ancient art of pehlwani evolved from indian wrestling techniques that date back to the 5th century b.c. >> voice: ready. start. >> anthony: training is rigid, as this is not just a sport, but a way of life. wrestlers live and train together and have strict rules of diet and personal conduct. no smoking, no drinking, no contact with women. here we go.

i took high school wrestling actually so that i could get out of gym class. i was a dirty, dirty fighter. it is an all too natural segue between the aggressive posturing of opposing bodies of pehlwani -- and this. the entire border between india and pakistan, has only one crossing. here, at waga. every sunset, the border is officially closed with this bit of national theater. wearing nearly duplicate uniforms, the indian military and pakistani rangers, partake

in a game of theatrical contempt. clearly, it's a popular show. so where are we? >> uday: we are right next to pakistan. >> anthony: india and pakistan were once one country. ripped apart in one of the hastiest, ill-considered partitions imaginable. beyond there, no more fence? >> uday: no more fences. >> anthony: so it's - once you get past there, you can go straight into pakistan if you want. >> uday: the problem is -- the thing is, india is trying to stop people from coming in. the infiltrators, you know drug dealers and terrorists. uday is working on a documentary about the india-pakistan border. >> uday: no one wants to go into pakistan. >> anthony: no one wants to go into pakistan. that's a fairly decisive

statement. so, they put up a fence but the fence is on the indian side. >> uday: yeah. it's uh, one fifty meters, from the border. >> anthony: right. so beyond that fence, still indian farmland. >> uday: yes. >> anthony: so people who live over here can farm over there. >> uday: can farm over there. >> anthony: the punjab is a fertile region in an otherwise very dry country. this is india's breadbasket, with over a billion people currently residing in india, every inch of fertile punjabi soil has great value. these are people who owned land over there. >> uday: yes. >> anthony: then they put the fence -- >> uday: yes. >> anthony: suddenly your life became difficult. >> uday: exactly. they are restricted by many things. they can only grow some kind of crops. and they can't farm more than 8 hours in a day. how long does it take to get back and forth? >> uday: the border security force mans these gates. so they have times, you know when they can enter and come out. >> anthony: how much farther can we go before they start to get worried? >> uday: here, i think we can just go till the pole. >> anthony: when india and

pakistan were separated, the attempt was to try to draw a line across religious lines. >> uday: exactly. >> anthony: drained by the colossal task of fighting two world wars, in 1947, great britain decided to end their nearly two hundred year rule over india. in an attempt to prevent what the colonials saw as an inevitable civil war between hindus, muslims, and sikhs, the british commissioned sir cyril radcliffe, a lawyer from wales, to draw up a new border. >> uday: he was given two months, you know. >> anthony: two months to divide -- create a new country basically. >> uday: two months to divide the -- so he took the map, and just drew a line. you know people died because of the displacement. unofficially they say it's two million people. you know when giants fight, the minnows get trampled upon. >> anthony: in one of the largest exchanges of populations in history, many millions of people fled their homes. almost immediately, religious violence broke out on a mass scale. this is exactly what the partition had been intended to avoid.

do people here still have families over there? >> uday: yeah they do. when the line was drawn, they were really just split into half. there are some houses where you enter from india and you exit from pakistan. >> anthony: really. wow. >> uday: this part of punjab, and that part of punjab, they were one state. so, the culture, the eating habits, it was just very similar. >> anthony: well it's a popular metaphor for india. pakistan is twins, separated at birth. >> uday: when they were twins, i mean it was one country. you can say dismembered. you know if you cut a body in two, they're not gonna become twins. >> anthony: right. >> uday: so it's sad, you know? you can see them, i mean they're doing the same work as you're doing, they dress the same, they look the same. but then, you can't talk to them. >> anthony: it is an ongoing struggle, an enduring cause of paranoia, visible all across the region. two nations, with atomic

arsenals, who have showed if nothing else, a terrifying willingness to use them. ♪ from the horrific 2006 train bombings, to the militant attacks in mumbai, the threat of terrorism along this border is a daily concern. daily concern. ♪

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♪ com deus me deitocom deus me levanto ♪ ♪ comigo eu calo comigo eu canto ♪ ♪ eu bato um papo eu bato um ponto ♪ ♪ eu tomo um drinque eu fico tonto ♪ >> anthony: want something good? really, really good, when in amritsar? something local, regional, iconically wonderful? you can't say you've had the amritsar experience until you've had a little kulcha in your life. kulcha.

this is the iconic dish of punjab. >> navroop: yes. that's the specialty here. >> anthony: kulcha. a perfect, little flavor bomb of wheat dough pressed against the side of a very, very hot clay oven, slathered with butter, and served with a spicy chole, a chickpea curry on the side. did i mention the butter? >> navroop: how is it? >> anthony: mmm! >> navroop: nice? >> anthony: delicious! everyone in amritsar seems to be an expert on kulcha, including this lady, navroop. >> navroop: it's a chutney, and this is all radish. >> anthony: very, very, very good. generally speaking, punjabis are famous for being a warrior class, taller, bigger. >> navroop: yes, they're big. >> anthony: still, maybe not fighters so much, but still eaters. >> navroop: oh, yeah!

big time, yes. the religion doesn't matter. food is religion here! >> man: first time in amritsar? what do you feel in this place? >> anthony: checking off my list of things to do in the punjab, i gotta score some animal protein. it's time. i've been going all morrissey for like two days now and frankly, that's enough. i need chicken. like we are in the ass end of nowhere here. where am i? >> sundeep: it's known as beera chicken. it's very famous for chicken.

>> anthony: when we're talking must-haves, tandoori chicken is just that. >> sundeep: add some lemon in this, and you will enjoy it. >> anthony: mmm. oh man. it's delicious. this type of establishment, dhaba? >> sundeep: dhaba, is called dhaba. you know this is the most successful business here. anybody, you open dhaba tomorrow, it will be a success. >> anthony: but if you're gonna do chicken, you better be good. >> sundeep: you know. it's a good place for that. would you like to have something else? >> anthony: there's uh, like a roti with a ground mutton? or ground lamb? >> sundeep: that's called naan. that's better known. >> anthony: keema naan. mutton ball, dough. and the special ingredient, magic hands. and believe me when i tell you, this shit is good. so good that people snap it up the second it comes out of the tandoor oven. hey! that's mine! mmm. >> sundeep: is it good? >> anthony: it's sensational. wow.

people do love their food. >> sundeep: definitely. i love eating! >> anthony: the movies and television in this country is fantastic. >> sundeep: thousands of films are made per year. >> anthony: i don't even understand why -- what's going on. i mean, everybody dances and sings. i don't get it! ♪ ♪ >> sundeep: would you like to have something else? >> anthony: oh, this is good. mmm! ♪ >> anthony: oh yeah. mmm. wow. oh. yeah.

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>> anthony: leaving the fertile plains of the punjab behind, i'm headed out towards the himalayas. and getting there, at least the way i'm going, hasn't changed much in the last hundred years. all aboard! ♪ this is gonna be sub-optimal seating. yeah, i don't think this reclines. thank god they have relaxed attitudes towards prescription drugs. before you enter the gateway to the himalayas, you better self-medicate. meanwhile, i've been like 24 hours without a bite of food. i arrive, it's like, "oh, well there's snacks on the way!" great. i'll get a bag of peanuts. truth be told, i'm an angry, bitter man when i board. i'm guessing there ain't a

shoney's or a p.f. chang on the way. kinda cute, little train. it's so little. it's the universal tours. when do we go on the king kong ride? while my stomach growls, i become the kind of traveler i warn against. gripey, self-absorbed, immune to my surroundings. but as my brightly colored, little train heads up into the hills from kalka station, known as the gateway to the himalayas, my worldview starts to improve. ♪ the unnaturally bright colors of india start to pleasurably saturate my brain. the views from the window of ridiculously deep valleys, hundred-year-old bridges -- it's well, breath-taking.

[ cheering ] my fellow passengers, too, are irresistibly charming. the school kids in their uniforms cheer in unison every time we pass through one of the tunnels. [ cheering ] >> anthony: i'd pretty much forgotten about my hunger until the whistle stop at barog. can i have one of those, and two of these? this place is named for a colonel barog, the british engineer tasked with building a line up to shimla. this station and the adjacent tunnel bearing his name are rumored to be haunted.

it's delicious. already behind schedule, and plagued by cost overruns, barog screwed up. [ cheering ] when he realized the two ends of this tunnel didn't meet in the middle, he shot himself. it's the kind of personal accountability i'd like to see more of, frankly. or is that just me? but all my snarkiness fades as i reflect, and one can't help but reflect, on what it took to dig, drag, blast, and tunnel one's way up this route back in the day. back in the beginning, making the trip to shimla required a somewhat uncomfortable three-day trek up the mountain by foot, or horse, or hand-powered palanquin.

the stats are impressive. a climb of around 5,000 feet, over a hundred tunnels, more than 800 bridges, an engineering feat, a job that when you consider the time, defies imagining. in the building of this railroad, many died. many, many died. ♪ ♪

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♪ >> anthony: when you look at that painting, when you stand out front in the garden and look out at the view --

can you picture the way it was? >> reggie: i've been to many places where it reminded me of what shimla had been when the british first came and settled there. i have a passion for such places. it is a kind of a throb that i feel. >> anthony: fond memories of british rule? maybe not what you'd expect to hear. but kanwar ratanjit singh, that's reggie for short, his family was different. indian royalty with palaces, the one percent of the one percent. so life for reggie, as a young boy, was, relative to the millions and millions of others his age, enchanted. shimla is from a time before partition, when nearly the

entire ruling class of british-india would move to hill stations in the hotter months. shimla was once known as the queen of all hill stations. here, the colonials created england in miniature. complete with tudor architecture, rose gardens, afternoon tea. >> reggie: my grandfather, it's very difficult to describe what did he do? well, quite frankly, he did nothing, but he entertained hugely. >> anthony: garden parties, fancy dress balls, elephant hunts. the remnants of british rule can

still be seen and felt. this is particularly true of one house. chapslee. >> reggie: my family was very fortunate that they were able to buy this house, because it was a famous house. >> anthony: the house was purchased by reggie's grandfather, the last maharaja of kapurthala. >> anthony: those brits really left beautiful buildings. from a distance it looks much the same, as it must have when the maharaja slept here. check out the tub.

locked in a constant battle against time and nature. barbed wire does little to keep shimla's ever encroaching monkey population at bay. stripped of their wealth and their kingdoms, the one-time royals all across india have had to either sell their estates or like reggie, turn them into hotels and guesthouses in order to hold on. ring a buzzer, and a servant appears. man, they bring you hot water bottles at night, put 'em under the covers. butlers keep poppin' in, build a nice fire. man.

>> reggie: a great facet of my childhood was how my grandfather entertained. his table came to be known as perhaps the most famous in northern india, because he was a gourmet connoisseur of food. >> anthony: tonight, dinner at chapslee. an elaborate anglo-indian menu from reggie's childhood. >> reggie: i will put on my apron first. >> anthony: my fellow guests, two of reggie's friends. raaja bahsin, a historian on the subject of shimla, and rakejhwar lall jood, the barrister. there's so much history here. i mean, while i take a dim view of colonialization, it's very hard to resist the charms of a

house like this. >> raaja: that's quite understandable, actually. you've got a hundred years of very, very intense history funneled into a very small place. >> rakejhwar: and this house used to house the secretary of state to the crown. >> anthony: what am i eating? this is "eggs oeuf a' la florentine." ooh, that's good. this was a small town. >> raaja: it was a small town with a very, very big government. >> rakejhwar: shimla enjoys the unique distinction of having been the summer capital of india, and surprisingly, it was the capitol of burma during the war days. >> raaja: so, here you have this tiny, little village up on the hill, connected to the rest of the world by a narrow mountain path, and they rule approximately a fifth of the human race for eight months every year. in today's context, it would almost seem bizarre.

>> anthony: mulligatawny soup. classic example of what we think >> anthony: mulligatawny soup. classic example of what we think of is of as indian food in the west, but not at all, this was originally a soup made by indian chefs to accommodate british tastes. is that correct? >> raaja: it was something what you would call halfway between a regular dal, a lentil, which you would eat, and a broth. the glace chops. >> rakejhwar: mutton glace chops. basically, meat cooked in its own fat, and it would have a lot of curry on it. it's a misnomer, this meat is not actually mutton. it is chevron. >> anthony: here, back before the rail line, it would be a difficult trip. >> raaja: yes. >> anthony: but once they were up and running, i mean there were many servants to look after your every need. you had a fireplace, a hearth in every room. >> raaja: and people, on the

regular payrolls whose only job was to shoo monkeys off the grounds. you'd be carried around in palanquins, a little box in which you sat in, a curtained box. >> rakejhwar: and this man would go stamping his staff in the ground, and the bells will jingle, and the common folk would give way. and normally, they were not even supposed to look in the direction. it was bad manners. >> anthony: right. >> raaja: it wasn't easy for the people who built the town. it was india that paid the bill for all this grandeur, for all this pomp, for all this show. >> rakejhwar: they did it, at our expense, and with our money. >> anthony: at the end of the meal there's coffee, brandy, and cigars in the sitting room. as one does, or once did. >> reggie: i hope you enjoyed the dinner too. >> anthony: oh very much. it was delicious. really wonderful. lot of history in this house. and one can be forgiven for maybe briefly forgetting, what it took to build this lost

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>> anthony: the monkey temple looks down on shimla. overrun by its namesakes. twisting up further into the himalayas, i find myself at a place known as the 'land of the gods'. nearly every village credited with having its own deity. getting there you might well have an opportunity to meet one of those deities, as you tear around narrow, guardrail-free

mountain roads, overlooking terrifying drop-offs. i could do heights, like, you know, i've done the jumping out of planes thing a number of times. but i feel it. you know like, looking over a precipice like that one? i feel it in my knees. you know like if my knees could vomit with terror, they would be. they'd be -- they'd be vomiting with terror right now. they should have little underwear stops on this road, you know where you could like get a fresh pair. every couple of miles, it's like -- that was scary. overloaded buses, water trucks with worn break pads, aggressive truck drivers, can come wailing around the corner at any time, and they do. about every 2 minutes. squeeze your cheeks tight and close your eyes. oh the enchantment of india.

the remote locations of these isolated mountain villages has kept old traditions alive. village fairs serve as an opportunity for families who live very far apart to get together, play games, eat, and partake in religious rites honoring local deities. ♪ quite a ride getting here. >> hashim: yeah. how'd you enjoy that road? >> anthony: uh -- white knuckles. meet hashim. he runs motorcycle tours through these parts. >> hashim: it's the holy grail of motorcycling. you're traveling almost a thousand, a thousand five hundred kilometers a trip. it's so unbelievably beautiful and diverse. >> anthony: so what we got here, vegetable curry? >> hashim: yogurt-based uh curry, quite typical in these parts.

>> anthony: vegetables again? surprisingly, not a problem. it's good. this is one of the few places in the world that i could eat vegetarian every day and still be happy. most of these people in this community farmers? farming? agricultural? >> hashim: farming, yeah. >> anthony: what are they growing? >> hashim: uh, they're doing a lot of corn, potatoes, peas -- >> anthony: and weed. people growing marijuana here. >> hashim: yes. loads of -- >> anthony: as an export product or for personal use for uh -- >> hashim: oh everything. mix of everything. so you think you wanna go check out the fair a little bit? cool. >> anthony: yeah, let's take a walk through town, see what's going on. >> hashim: predominantly located for all these mountain villagers to come together, and you know, socialize, because i mean people are busy in their farms, they're not gonna come and walk down and socialize with people. but this, you know because it's autumn, everyone's done with all the agriculture. now they're just bearing down for winter.

there's a lot of romance in the air. ♪ >> anthony: i've been to mumbai, kolkata, sundarbans, rajasthan, kerala. this is a part of india different than any other part. look, it's fascinating and beautiful. ♪ ♪ oh yeah. sweet! ♪ ♪ >> anthony: wow. it's moving! ♪ ♪ >> hashim: voila.

end of the road. [ cheering ] ♪ >> robie: this place was a boomin'. you couldn't get through this town down there. but it's dead now. about eight or ten coal mines shut down at one time. >> coach: let's go! it's the same halftime speech every single week. >> quentin: there is so much negativity surrounding this place that no one ever focuses on the positive.