Monday, October 14, 2013

A weekend in Amritsar

The guys at Pause Dwelling are on to me – they have all been speaking to me in Hindi the last few days. This would be great, except I still know so little that I am lucky if I understand even two or three words in each sentence. It's only making me more determined, though, and I'm planning to scour the local bookstores for a good English-Hindi dictionary and a phrasebook as well. If this guy can become fluent in a foreign language in just 3 months, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to hold at least a basic conversation by the end of two.

I didn't get a whole lot of time to practice my Hindi skillz this weekend, however, because Charlene, Verity, and I took a trip to Amritsar.
Look! There's snow on the mountain!
I practiced my reading along the way, but after we entered the state of Punjab, all the signs switched from Devanagari to Punjabi; at first I thought it was just a new font, but then I noticed a sign with both on it and realized that it was in fact a completely new script – and, I think, a new language as well.

The roads were much nicer in Punjab, and the weather got immediately warmer. We had come down off the mountain and onto the plains, and traveled a bit south besides.
Punjab looks more or less like Illinois.
I didn't see as many cows on the roads, but they were replaced by herds of water buffalo. Horses began to show up, both pulling carts and just hanging out. More and more men wore turbans – we had entered the land of the Sikhs; more of the drivers of motorbikes were women (there are very few female drivers in India from what I can tell, at least in Himachal). We passed a sign that said “Chicken Shop” and had a picture of a goat on it... I'm still not quite sure what to think of that one.

We drove for seven hours, during which time I tried to engage our driver, Suhil, in Hindi conversation. It never lasted long, though; I think he was more interested in practicing his English. He recommended we go straight to the border because they had moved the closing ceremony up an hour due to the sun going down sooner in the day.

The two big attractions in Amritsar are the closing of the border between India and Pakistan, and the Golden Temple inside the city. If we missed the border closing we'd have to stick around another day, which we didn't want to do. We got there just in time.

Luckily, none of the three of us looked Indian enough to require a passport check; we were able to go right through. Foreigners were ushered to one side while Indian citizens crowded the other side of the road. When the gate was opened, they ran – I mean they sprinted – to the next gate, everyone eager to get the best seats.



We got our seats in the relatively tiny “Foreigners Gallery” and watched the place fill up. I felt like I was at Medieval Times. There was much introduction with running of flags and dancing.

You see those bleachers behind me? That's Pakistan.

I totally photobombed this old guy. I don't think he noticed (yet).
The whole production, once it started, lasted a little over an hour. It involved campy displays of military might on both sides, literal flexing of muscles by the ornately-clad border guards, high kicks a la John Cleese, stomping, shouting, etc. It was fun but they could have cut the whole thing in half and I think it would have been even more effective. Longer is not always better.


In the end, they lowered the Indian and Pakistani flags simultaneously, and then the guards slammed their respective gates shut. The border patrol held the throng of Indians back to allow us foreigners and VIPs a chance to get out without being trampled, and we made our way back to Suhil and the taxi.

A Tibetan guy asked me along the way if I came from Dharamsala; cautiously I said yes and he told me he's seen me buying veggies at one of the produce stands. I guess it shouldn't have been too surprising; Amritsar is one of the local attractions. We eventually made it back to the taxi, but since it was Saturday evening, it was basically like we left a concert in the heart of Chicago, waiting until the last song has been sung and having to wait your turn to get out.

Event parking: you're doing it wrong.
We eventually got back onto what passes for a highway in India and into Amritsar.

I couldn't get many photos because it was late at night and we were tired, hungry, and determined to reach the temple so we could rest, but it reminded me a lot of Delhi: dirty, loud, and overcrowded.


Not remembering that a lot of the religious places around here require women to cover their hair, I left my scarf in the car and had to buy a cheap bandanna outside the temple. Apparently at Sikh temples, everyone has to cover their hair. Being a secularist, I find it a little silly, but at least it isn't sexist.

We also had to leave our shoes at a place outside the temple, kind of like when you rent skates at an ice or roller rink. Everybody plodded, barefoot, up the path to the temple where we had to walk through a shallow pool of water before entering the main area. “It's not so impressive,” my overtired self thought. Then we got inside and saw the actual golden temple. 



It was pretty cool.

From what I can gather, making a pilgrimage to the Golden Temple is for Sikhs more or less what making a pilgrimage to the Kaaba in Mecca is for Muslims. They queued up to go inside the temple itself where, I'm told, a very holy book is kept.

Music and chanting played the whole time we were there. There is also a free kitchen where anyone can go to eat anytime, day or night. First, though, we wanted to find the sleeping quarters so we could put our stuff down. After a few attempts at getting the guards to tell us where to go (and getting only vague answers), we finally found someone to take us to the special room reserved just for foreigners.

Everyone is welcome to spend the night at the temple, anytime they want... as long as they're willing to sleep on the ground outside. There is a residence hall but I'm not sure what you have to do to get one of the rooms outside the giant main room (it filled with people by the end of the night). Foreigners, however, get a special room off to the side with cots, lockers, and their own bathroom. There were a couple dozen beds altogether, but we had no trouble finding free ones.

The "inn" at the temple seemed to me how I imagine hostels. Verity said it was more like a prison.
There had to have been ten thousand people in the temple altogether. As Marie said when she got back earlier in the week, “This (Dharamsala) isn't India. That (Amritsar) is India.” It wasn't until we'd dropped off our things, washed our faces, and gone to get some free dal and chapatti that I pondered just how many people were there. It was pretty incredible.


The next morning we got up before dawn – not on purpose, it just kind of happened – which was just as well because I'd heard that the best time to view the temple was at dawn and at dusk. We went and found a spot to sit and waited for the sun to rise.


Aside from the couple of other westerners we saw in the sleeping quarters, I didn't see any other obvious foreigners there; this could explain why people looked at us with such interest. Three white women in the heart of Punjab – quite an oddity!

The longer we stayed on the temple grounds, the more I enjoyed it. I marveled at how clean the place was, and how relaxed everyone seemed to be. There were no fussy children, no raised voices... it was super chill. Everyone was nice. We had a few people come up and shake our hands, and this guy struck up a conversation in which he informed us that he's been married twice and has seventeen children, and that he's “strong like tiger!” 

 
I'm not sure if he's well known in those parts or it was just a good excuse for the rest of them to come up, but once he started talking to us a crowd formed around us three. Verity had a kid come up and say “Nice to meet you” as though he'd been practicing his English. It was cute.

We wandered around the temple for a bit and then out one of the gates where they were having what appeared to be the Sikh equivalent of a religious service. The mood here was very relaxed as well, with people spread out all over the room. One little guy ran up to us after we'd been there a few minutes and held out a pack of cookies. When we each took one he grinned and ran back to his family. He came back periodically, offering us various foodstuffs; we took some photos and he was thrilled to see himself on the little screen.


At 9 we packed up our things and headed back to collect our shoes and meet Suhil, and began the trek back home. I probably could have stayed one more day (in the temple, not in the city of Amritsar), but we've got Tibetans relying on us for English lessons, so here I am, back in McLeod Ganj. If you're ever near Punjab, I recommend checking out the Golden Temple and what the hell, go see the border thing too if you're in the mood for a show. 

A jujube tree!
I expected a priestess to come out and ask me to go retrieve Nettlebane....









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