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Published: August 7th 2007
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We got into Amritsar in the evening of April 11th and checked into a simple hotel a minute's walk from the Sikh Harimandir Sahib, or Golden Temple. Amritsar is the Sikh holy city, founded in 1577 by the fourth Sikh Guru and centered around a holy bathing pool. The pool is now a square tank circled in marble, and in the center is the beautiful golden temple. The Sikh faith is a monotheistic religion based on meditative worship, hard work, equality and giving. The temple welcomes visitors of any religion, and a huge communal canteen provides free food to anyone at all hours of the day. We went to see the temple immediately after arriving in Amritsar. At night the place was cool and quiet, with Sikhs and visitors circling the tank and sleeping on the marble ground. We got there just in time to see the ceremony in which the Adi Granth--the holy book--is put to bed after being carried on a golden chariot, followers crowding around for a chance to touch or carry it. Inside the temple was a crowd of Sikhs cleaning and taking down the elaborate tapestries for the night. Since hard work is an important facet
of Sikhism, there is never a shortage of followers to lovingly clean and care for the temple.
We went to eat at the canteen around midnight, sitting in rows on the ground and receiving helpings of dhal and chapati on silver platters. We apparently sat in the wrong place, because suddenly our entire row of people got up to go and we were alone on our long carpet, having just begun eating. We sheepishly moved to the correct carpet to finish our food. Apparently the temple feeds something like 40,000 people a day, an amazing and admirable feat.
After eating we returned to our hotel to sleep, but the next day we returned to the temple in the late-morning heat. The golden temple glittered in the sunlight, and the entire complex was crowded with people, walking and praying and bathing in the tank. Jeff joined the other bathers in the water, to the curious amusement of a number of Sikhs. Afterwards we went to have lunch in the canteen, which was packed with an astounding number of people eating. We were the only two white people in the bustling canteen, but we felt completely welcome and accepted. We
received nothing but smiles from the people around us, although we obviously stood out.
In the late afternoon we returned to our hotel in order to catch a taxi to the Pakistan-Indian border, where a daily ceremony is held beside the entrance gate. On the way the driver stopped so we could see a new and still unfinished Hindu temple, which is remarkably similar to the Sikh temple--complete with central gold-covered temple and square tank. As is so often said in India, it was "same same but different." It seemed a little strange to so closely mimic the Sikh temple, but I don't know enough about the Hindu version to really judge it either way. We returned to the taxi to drive to the border, passing herds of water buffalo swimming in shallow ponds along the road.
We arrived at the border early and sat at plastic tables outside a small drink stand, eating popcorn and drinking a beer with the other (mostly Indian) tourists there to see the ceremony. A tiny 4-week-old puppy played in the dirt under the tables, and he kept me entertained until it was time to file past security and sit in huge
bleachers overlooking the metal gate. Some soldiers were dressed in elaborate formal uniforms for the ceremony, while others stood in fatigues and scanned the crowd with binaculars, guns slung over their shoulders. A huge crowd of Indians and tourists packed into the stands on our side of the gate, and a similar crowd formed on the Pakistani side. Indians ran down the central road carrying Indian flags, and the crowd cheered and chanted. It was as if a sports event were about to occur, but in fact the ceremony itself was somewhat anticlimatic. Soldiers on either side shouted and marched back and forth along the road, and the gate was opened a few times so soldiers from both sides could salute each other before the gates were quickly closed again. Through it all, both crowds cheered as if the staged ceremony were a competition. At the end the Indian and Pakistani flags were lowered simultaneously, and the crowds surged forward towards the gates, eager, I suppose, to see each other close up. After most of the crowd had begun to file back towards the taxis and busses, a group of women in matching pale blue sarees still sat in a
group on the bleachers, posing for group photographs. Jeff and I stopped to take their picture and wave, and they gestured eagerly for me to come join them. They were women from a college in Chennai on a tour through their country, and they seemed positively thrilled to shake my hand and ask me questions. Although the border ceremony itself wasn't terribly exciting, meeting the women made the evening thorougly worthwhile.
We took the taxi back to our hotel to quickly pack up and climb right back into the taxi to head to the railway station for our overnight train to Delhi. It would be our last Indian train, and our last few days in such a colorful, richly diverse country.
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cassandra
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haha
i would have to say my favorite picture from this journal entry would have to be 'mr. binocular soldier man'... classic.