Speechless / Famous in India

This Saturday me and Daniela decided to take a bus around 10 in the evening to go to Amritsar, about 30 km from the Pakistan border. Amritsar, home to Sikhism’s holiest shrine; the Golden Temple. For those who not know, Sikhism is a religion, founded in Punjab by Guru Nanak in the 15^th century, which began as a reaction against the caste system. What I’ve seen so far is that the Sikhs, well at least the men, do not cut their hair or shave their beard, wear a turban to hide their probably 2 meter long hair, and some even carry a sword with them. I’ve heard that they also wear loose underwear but I won’t be the judge of that. Sikh men also seem to be a bit bigger than Indians in general. I’m still trying to figure out why that is.

So after a 4,5 hour warm bus ride with too loud Punjabi music we arrived at Amritsar at 2.30 in the night. We took a tuk-tuk with a friendly Indian couple to the temple complex. After chugging the last bit of my rum and coke (as alcohol and tobacco are strictly forbidden within the temple complex), we had to take our shoes and socks off… It was freezing cold! And no gloves allowed, damn! But hey, I’m Dutch so let’s do this! Once inside the complex, we saw the Golden Temple and forgot about the cold for a while, the sight simply took our breath away. And the chanting flowing out of the speakers took our thoughts to a different place. After staring at the temple for a while and taking some pictures, we started to walk around a bit and even at 3 in the night a lot of pilgrims were already there to pray and pay their respect, bath in Amrit Sarovar (the sacred pool surrounding the Temple), take a drink out of that same holy water and volunteer in cleaning the Parkarma (marble walkaway surrounding the water). I liked the idea of pilgrims volunteering in keeping the temple clean, however walking barefoot on a wet marble floor in the middle of the night...we were not made for this!

Luckily there were a lot of things to take our minds of the cold for a while. Everywhere we looked there were people praying and performing rituals. It was strange for me to see these pilgrims being so strictly religious, coming from a country where my generation doesn’t seem to take religion all that serious anymore. It was strange to see, but strange in a good way. After realizing my feet were turning blue we needed to find a place to warm up. And what better place than the Golden Temple itself! We crossed the Gurus’ Bridge and entered: gold everywhere, flowers, people praying, lots of colors and 4 well-dressed Sikhs playing some weird instruments and singing into microphones. So that’s where the chanting is coming from! We went upstairs to the first floor, more people praying, and...the Sikh Holy Book, which is huge!! Still amazed of the beautiful vibe surrounding us we went up to the second floor, which is outside and on top of the temple. Getting a bit emotional after seeing all these people really loving and living their religion and rituals, the cold kicked in again. Back to reality. So we left the temple and with the help of our holy Travel Bible we found the dorms where all the pilgrims (and us tourists) can sleep for free. We stayed there for half an hour to warm up our feet and went back to the temple because there was a ceremony planned at 5 AM which supposed to be really special. And special it was! It also seemed that we were the only tourists/non-Sikhs/white people attending this ceremony which made it even better. I’m trying to think how I should describe the whole thing and put it in words but I’m afraid it won’t do any right to what I saw and how it made me feel. At that moment I was speechless and even now I still am when I think about the ceremony. Let’s just say this was one of the reasons I came to India. Inner peace.

We went back to the dorms to catch some sleep and unfortunately were woken up at 10 again. Then we had breakfast in a big dining hall, together with the Sikh pilgrims, on the floor, for free. Great meal, great hospitality. After giving our plates to one of the hundred volunteers who were doing the dishes, one of the Sikhs asked us if we wanted to be on the picture with him. Yes please!!
We walked around the beautiful golden shrine once more to take some touristy pictures and then left the complex, to put on our socks and shoes. I love socks and shoes!

Next stop: Pakistan border.

About 30 km eastwards from the Golden Temple lays Wagah, the only road border crossing between India and Pakistan, also known as the Berlin Wall of Asia. Every day at around 5 in the afternoon, this border crossing closes and this is done by holding a big ceremony.  They have built big tribunes around the gates for the people to sit because some thousand Indians and Pakistanis are drawn to the spectacle every day. Arriving there in an Indian taxi (read: taxi with too many people in it), having 3 passport checks and being frisked two times, we were seated in the tourist section. After a while some guy in a white jogging outfit of some sort started to sweep up the crowd and the ceremony started. Traditionally dressed border patrol on both sides marked their territory by shouting and doing aggressive but silly walks. Every aggressive step directed at the Pakistanis was received by lots of cheering and laughter, great atmosphere! I have made some amazing videos from this ceremony but you’ll just have to visit me in 3 months to see them because I can’t put them up here. After lowering both flags, seeing one of the Indians shake hands with one of the Pakistanis and the closing of the gates, the show had ended. As we walked back to our Indian taxi while making some pictures, a group of Indians asked for my camera so that they could take a picture of me and Daniela. At least that’s what I thought... What they really asked was if they could be on the picture with me! So suddenly I was surrounded by 5 Indian guys from around my age, while holding up my little Indian flag, and giving them my best smile. This happened two times more and made me feel very ‘special’.

What a crazy trip it was.
Actually the entire week was crazy.

Still 11 more of these weeks to go. That should be interesting…

“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” – James Michener