Curfew Imposed in Jalandhar

Navjot woke me up this morning and told me that the city was under curfew. Last night, rioters in the city set fires and blocked roads into the city. This is a response to the violence that occurred at a Sikh Temple in Vienna, Austria (of all places?!?!) which left one Sikh "holy person" (minister, or, 'sant') dead and another injured. Both holy people were revered by many people in this region-the Jalandhar District, Hoshiapur, and Phagwara area.

Now, last night Navjot and I were completely unaware that fires and riots were raging in this city. They took place in another part of town--so they have happened in small areas, not city-wide.

However, protesters did manage to close the main highway from Jalandhar to New Delhi, the NH 1. The road going northwest to Pathankot (where we began our mountain adventure a couple of weeks ago) has also been closed. Three rail cars were set on fire.

The news here provides tiny amounts of information presented in a sensationalist manner, similar to, and even more extreme than, Fox News back at home. BBC News is providing more video clips than written reports, which are not loading easily onto our computers with our slow connection. 'rrrrrr'

However, the military has come in (they paraded with flags in our neighborhood around 6pm.)

The rules of curfew are: stay at home. Going out and about could get you arrested.

So, when almost all of our milk curdled (it was bought yesterday!) we couldn't get anymore. (Milk based products are not keeping well in this heat--we haven't bought one container of good yogurt since our return from the mts, either). I couldn't go to the gym today, or collect my repairs from the tailor. Navjot couldn't go to his lesson. Shops were closed too. All the sounds of zooming motorcycles and honking vehicles ceased. I observed the city twice from the rooftop today: once I took photos, and both times I only heard chirping birds!! After the 6pm military flag-parade (which I didn't see, I was told minutes after fact by my landlords) more vehicles were heard on the board, but the shops remained closed.

Raju, our cook and cleaner, worked here this morning, but will not work this evening.

We'll see if the curfew is lifted tomorrow. This afternoon, while we ate lunch, we found Police Academy 3 dubbed in Hindi on TV. This 80's cheese movie, whose characters I remember with a scary precision (I wished my mind worked this well for historical facts and more useful information) acted as a fleeting, but bizarre backdrop to this solemn, quiet situation around us.