Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

This house came to be built by Dr. Blake.

My grandfather came to be nominated to the council of

state which used to be a part of British India.

It was another time, one that few still remember.

The India before partition, when

these rooms, this house, was part of the seat of power.

I had the privilege of being

born in this house upstairs.

This was the maharajah's bed.

His chambers are present.

We went up to my grandfather's room to wish him

good morning and we would all come down to breakfast.

The walls tell a story.

Many stories.

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.

Day one in northern India near the Pakistan border.

This is the Indian Punjab’s largest city.

Population, about a million.

This is a part of India I have

never seen, a place I have

always been curious about, home

to some pretty legendary cuisine.

They have a saying, the best

food isn't cooked in people's homes.

You find it on the streets.

Punjabis are known for their

adventurous spirit as brave

warriors who spread throughout

the world, bringing great food with them.

In fact, much of the good stuff

we refer to simply as Indian food comes from here.

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.

Dhaba meaning side of the road food stall and there are

countless dhabas to choose from

in this town but this one is legendary.

See Tony eat vegetables.

And like it.

To eat around this part of

the world, Punjab in particular,

get used to eating a lot of vegetables.

India is one of the few places

on earth where even for me, that's not a burden.

What's that?

I'll take that.

Right here, my good man.

Mm.

That's good.

In the Punjab, meat or no

meat, you are 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 would

be at least half as much less of

a... about the subject.

If you made bread this good,

I might eat in your restaurant.

Mm.

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.

This is the home, the spiritual

center of the Sikh faith, the

world's largest and maybe most misunderstood religion.

In the heart 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.

Welcome to golden temple.

Thank you.

Today is 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.

This is a free vegetarian meal

served to many thousands of

visitors from every walk of life every day of the year.

They serve 16 hours a day?

16 hour a day.

For how many years?

Continuously?

300 years.

300 years.

Everyone doing the cooking, the serving, the washing of

thousands and thousands of metal

plates and utensils, are volunteers.

The sound is extraordinary.

We have a feeling that everyone should serve to other

people free of cost.

Walking me through it all Tod Tod today.

For a religion so concerned with

tolerance, where does the tradition come from?

Powerful people, hard-working people.

Every Sikh you have seen, when

we get baptized, you must protect yourself, you must

protect others and you must

protect your country so that makes us what we are.

Morning.

The smoke from countless burning

fields covers the city in a thick haze.

The ancient art evolved from

Indian wrestling techniques that

date back to the fifth century B.C.

Ready, start!

Training is rigid.

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.

I took high school wrestling so

that I could get out of gym class.

I was a dirty, dirty fighter.

It's an all too natural segue

between the aggressive posturing

of opposing bodies and this.

The entire border between India

and Pakistan has only one crossing.

Here.

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?

We are right next to Pakistan.

India and Pakistan were once

one country, ripped apart in one

of the hastiest, ill-considered partitions imaginable.

Beyond there, no more fence?

No more fences.

So once you get past there, you can go straight into

Pakistan if you want?

The problem is, the thing is,

India is trying to stop people

from coming in, infiltrators, drug dealers, terrorists.

He is working on a documentary about the

India/Pakistan border.

No one wants to go to Pakistan.

No one wants to?

In their right mind, to go into Pakistan.

That's a fairly decisive statement.

So they put up the fence but the

fence is on the Indian side.

Yeah.

It's 115 meters from the border.

So beyond that fence, still Indian farmland.

Yes.

So people who live over here can farm over there.

Farm over there.

The Punjab is a fertile region in an otherwise very dry

country.

This is India's bread basket.

With over a billion people currently residing in India,

every inch of fertile Punjabi soil has great value.

These are people who own land

over there, then they put the

fence, suddenly your life became difficult.

Exactly.

They can only grow some kind of

crops and they can't farm more

than eight hours in a day.

How long does it take to get back and forth?

The border security force

manage these gates so they have

times when they can enter and come out.

How much farther can we go before they start to get