Thursday, February 23, 2012
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Visit to Gurudwara
One incident that overwhelmed me with happiness was when I witnessed the output of effective teamwork, at a Gurudwara, near Ulsoor Lake in Bengaluru. This was my first ever visit to a Gurudwara, back in 2008.
The story ran as below:
The day was Baisakhi, the Punjabi New Year. I and one of my closest friends, Paramjeet Singh, along with other seniors and freshmen of our college (a group of 25 people) went to the nearest Gurudwara to celebrate the occasion. On our arrival, a sweet-flavored white drink was served (sorry, I forgot the name). Following which, we deposited our footwear at the counter - the counter-boy was a bit amazed to receive so many pairs at a time. He asked Paramjeet how many were there in our group. To which proudly came the reply that there were 25 of us (he was positively radiant!). I was happy for him.
After washing our hands and feet when we entered the main hall of Gurudwara, it was amazing to see so many Punjabis at one single place (since I come from a place where the Punjabi community can be counted on your fingers), and there was no space to sit. Many thanks to Paramjeet, for acquainting me and the others, with the customs and rituals to be followed in the Gurudwara. After doing "Maththa Thek" (prostrating oneself), the big question mark hanging, was where to sit. Probably someone noticed that bemused expression on my face and, within no time volunteers guided us to a hall at the rear - surprise surprise, that was full too. I never considered the size of the Punjabi community in Bangalore. With a little effort from the volunteers, and our beloved Punjabi-speaking friends, we managed some space for ourselves. When we went inside the main hall, "Ardas" (the reading of the Holy Book) was going on, but it concluded soon (so I knew when the volume in the Gurudwara increased).
Soon enough, we were summoned for 'Langaar' (the community meal). The Dining Hall was a huge place, with massive vessels, and a large number of utensils. After roaming around for a while, I realized that there is no specific chef to prepare food (probably is, but I was unable to locate them in that vast crowd). Ladies, gents, kids – everyone was doing whatever they could do. This is what inspired me. A child was just passing the plates from one table to another. In a fit of inspiration, I went to the table where rotis were being prepared. I tried hard to prepare rotis in a somewhat-circular shape, but I was unable to. I was quite disappointed. Then I saw men working inside the main kitchen where the rotis were being baked. I went there and I saw a child arranging baskets. Seeing so many little kids working hard there, I got an answer to one of my age-old queries (WHY are Punjabis so much stronger? Because they get trained from a very early age).
And then finally, after observing everything I found a task which was best suitable for me there. Rotis were being passed to a person, who was applying ghee on it. If the same task was left to one person, the time to finish would be more. The work being shared reduced the asking time for the task. Like this, there were 8 people, 4 of them passing rotis, and 4 of them applying ghee on it.
Making rotis is a simple process, as all have, no doubt, witnessed in our homes. Mom or sis takes the flour, adds some water to it, and prepares the dough, then makes equal size balls from it. Finally, by applying pressure in a very proper manner to create flat and circular rotis, they are baked on the stove, and ghee is applied on it before serving. A total of six steps in the process, the average person would probably simplify it further. It takes less than half an hour to prepare rotis for a family of 4-5. But what if the family is of 4000-5000???
The problem is big, but the solution fished out by them was bigger than that. They divided the mammoth task between people. And it's not that only Gurudwara people, or even master chefs with a team are involved in the process. It was a joint effort by everybody present there, voluntarily. I didn't peep into other sections, but the roti section itself was sufficient to explain me the concept of teamwork, and the sweet outcome of it. A few people were preparing dough, on the other side some were only concerned about putting dough into the shape of a roti, and others were putting rotis into the oven/tawa for baking. From there, rotis were directly delivered to us where our task was to apply ghee on it.
Aah!!! It is difficult to express in words the immense pleasure I got after doing that task in that huge kitchen, and what a wonderful practical example of teamwork, which we only envision in books!!! I thus learnt what team work is, and how a huge task can be tackled with a little effort from everybody (working as a team).
The story ran as below:
The day was Baisakhi, the Punjabi New Year. I and one of my closest friends, Paramjeet Singh, along with other seniors and freshmen of our college (a group of 25 people) went to the nearest Gurudwara to celebrate the occasion. On our arrival, a sweet-flavored white drink was served (sorry, I forgot the name). Following which, we deposited our footwear at the counter - the counter-boy was a bit amazed to receive so many pairs at a time. He asked Paramjeet how many were there in our group. To which proudly came the reply that there were 25 of us (he was positively radiant!). I was happy for him.
After washing our hands and feet when we entered the main hall of Gurudwara, it was amazing to see so many Punjabis at one single place (since I come from a place where the Punjabi community can be counted on your fingers), and there was no space to sit. Many thanks to Paramjeet, for acquainting me and the others, with the customs and rituals to be followed in the Gurudwara. After doing "Maththa Thek" (prostrating oneself), the big question mark hanging, was where to sit. Probably someone noticed that bemused expression on my face and, within no time volunteers guided us to a hall at the rear - surprise surprise, that was full too. I never considered the size of the Punjabi community in Bangalore. With a little effort from the volunteers, and our beloved Punjabi-speaking friends, we managed some space for ourselves. When we went inside the main hall, "Ardas" (the reading of the Holy Book) was going on, but it concluded soon (so I knew when the volume in the Gurudwara increased).
Soon enough, we were summoned for 'Langaar' (the community meal). The Dining Hall was a huge place, with massive vessels, and a large number of utensils. After roaming around for a while, I realized that there is no specific chef to prepare food (probably is, but I was unable to locate them in that vast crowd). Ladies, gents, kids – everyone was doing whatever they could do. This is what inspired me. A child was just passing the plates from one table to another. In a fit of inspiration, I went to the table where rotis were being prepared. I tried hard to prepare rotis in a somewhat-circular shape, but I was unable to. I was quite disappointed. Then I saw men working inside the main kitchen where the rotis were being baked. I went there and I saw a child arranging baskets. Seeing so many little kids working hard there, I got an answer to one of my age-old queries (WHY are Punjabis so much stronger? Because they get trained from a very early age).
And then finally, after observing everything I found a task which was best suitable for me there. Rotis were being passed to a person, who was applying ghee on it. If the same task was left to one person, the time to finish would be more. The work being shared reduced the asking time for the task. Like this, there were 8 people, 4 of them passing rotis, and 4 of them applying ghee on it.
Making rotis is a simple process, as all have, no doubt, witnessed in our homes. Mom or sis takes the flour, adds some water to it, and prepares the dough, then makes equal size balls from it. Finally, by applying pressure in a very proper manner to create flat and circular rotis, they are baked on the stove, and ghee is applied on it before serving. A total of six steps in the process, the average person would probably simplify it further. It takes less than half an hour to prepare rotis for a family of 4-5. But what if the family is of 4000-5000???
The problem is big, but the solution fished out by them was bigger than that. They divided the mammoth task between people. And it's not that only Gurudwara people, or even master chefs with a team are involved in the process. It was a joint effort by everybody present there, voluntarily. I didn't peep into other sections, but the roti section itself was sufficient to explain me the concept of teamwork, and the sweet outcome of it. A few people were preparing dough, on the other side some were only concerned about putting dough into the shape of a roti, and others were putting rotis into the oven/tawa for baking. From there, rotis were directly delivered to us where our task was to apply ghee on it.
Aah!!! It is difficult to express in words the immense pleasure I got after doing that task in that huge kitchen, and what a wonderful practical example of teamwork, which we only envision in books!!! I thus learnt what team work is, and how a huge task can be tackled with a little effort from everybody (working as a team).
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