Jallianwala Bagh

Jallianwala Bagh deserves a short entry on its own. It is a park I visited in Amritsar. In 1919 the British who occupied India at the time stormed a peaceful protest and killed or wounded 2000 Indians. This was the scene shown in the film Gandhi. The surrounding walls are very high and it is easy to see how people would be trapped with no escape. It was this event that pushed Gandhi to start his program of civil disobedience. The park now is a very peaceful place where locals picnic and lay in the sun on the grass, Indian tourists take photos in front of the monuments and the feeling is kind of strange. A place that was witness to such a tragedy has become so different. You can see the well where hundreds jumped to avoid the bullets then died because of the depth. On some of the original walls you can still see the bullet holes in the stone. I found the experience strange.