I’m not a religious / spiritual person at all, but I find that there is some peace to be gained by visiting a Gurudwara. Of all the houses of worship, I find a trip to a Gurdwara most fulfilling. And nothing beats being at the holiest of the holy ones. I was in Amritsar for 3 days and, since my hotel was right next to the Golden Temple, I was able to visit it five times - after all, I did have a lot of sins that needed to be washed away.
Though peaceful and fulfilling at all times, the Temple has different moods at different times of the day. As one enters the complex, one is awed by the large clear pool of water (Amrit Sarover, holy pool, from where Amritsar gets its name) which surrounds the Golden Temple, which, btw, is much smaller than what I expected it to be. There are people sitting by the edge of the pool, taking a dip, or making a round of the pool. Many others are simply sitting (and communicating with their God, I presume) in the corridors that line the perimeter of the complex. On one side of the sarover is the Akal Takht and on the other side is a large gate that leads to the Langar. The temple was built in the late 16th-early 17th century, and covered with gold at the orders of Ranjit Singh, The sanctum sanctorum (from where the Guru Granth Sahib is recited) is quite small and crowded and one can’t spend too much time there (but the kada Prasad is, needless to say, excellent!).
It rained quite a bit when I was there and my shoes were quite dirty so on one visit to the Temple, when I got my shoes back from the shoe-deposit place, I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had been given a nice scrub. Some soul had taken pity on their condition!
Ok now for the other (and perhaps more important) stuff for which Amritsar is famous – food! In that respect it was very similar to its pre-partition twin Lahore. Excessive food, with excessive ghee. As in Lahore, people in Amritsar haven’t heard of the concept of cholesterol, or tend to ignore it. Amritsar is known for its street food and every road and street corner has a redhi-waala selling his delicious looking (but perhaps not too hygienic) stuff. The most famous Dhabas are Bharawan da Dhaba and Kesar da Dhaba. At Bharawan da Dhaba, after I'd had one extremely filling paratha dripping (I'm not joking) with ghee, I contemplated having another one. Oh what the hell, I told myself, I'll walk back to the hotel and promptly called the server. I told him "Another paratha, but without the ghee please." Needless to say everyone around me was silent for a few seconds.
Amritsari Kulchas are tasty beyond belief and ridiculously heavy. One Kulcha and that’s you done for the day. As I was devouring one such Kulcha there were a couple of local boys who come and started chatting with me.
‘You’re definitely not from here’
‘What brings you to Chungiwaala?’
‘Is it that famous outside Amritsar too?’
As they say, “Ghar kee murgi daal barabar” (bad example).
Next stop Wagah. It was raining the day I planned to go and I was told by my hotel that there would be fewer crowds that day. They were wrong! The place was choc-a-bloc. So much has been said about the “ceremony” so I will not gloss over it. But I must add that I’ve been lucky enough to see the tamasha (that’s what I’ll call it) from ‘the other side’ when I visited Pakistan about 5 years back. If asked to rate, I’ll give more points to the ceremony from the Pakistani side. No No I’m not being unpatriotic at all. First of all, the Sun. At sunset (when the ceremony is held, duh) the sun is shining straight into the eyes of the those who’re watching from the Indian side (since it sets in the west) – So the Pakistani side get a better view since the Sun is behind them and they’re looking east. Secondly, on the Indian side, the viewing stands (atleast for the men) are way back (after the stands for foreigners, and then for the women). In Pakistan they’re much closer to the action so you can actually see something. And the Pakistani Rangers look much more intimidating (that’s the whole point of the ceremony, right?) when they twirl their moustaches! But atleast our music is better.
The last (and probably most important) place to visit was Jallianwaala Bagh. Again no historical context required. It is a very tastefully done up memorial and the people are very reverent (and thankfully, quite silent) when they explore the place. There are some signs that indicate where the firing took place from or the well where many people jumped in rather than die of bullets. All in all very moving.
So that was my (very short) visit. I left Amritsar with (hopefully) a cleaner soul, and (hopefully not) a few extra kgs and a higher count of LDL.
