Amritsar

I am quite behind on posts, but it's been a busy few days as my time in India is winding down. So I'll take a break from packing to try to do justice to our overnight trip to Amritsar the middle of this past week.

Wednesday morning was an early one as we got up and left the residence at 6:15 so that we could make our 7:05 train to Amritsar. I love train rides and don't hate the mornings, so I was very excited :) After half of us getting a little lost when we got separated from the lead half of the group and Hemanshu because of the mass of people, we all made it to platform 2 and found our seats. I was a little sad that the train didn't have compartments like the Hogwarts Express, but alas, you can't have everything in life. Catherine, Amy, and I settled into our seats that were very much like airplane seats, except plastic instead of cloth, and prepared for our 6hr journey north. We filled the 6hrs with lots of conversation, investigating and enjoying the breakfast we were given, drinking black tea (with varying levels of sugar and creamer depending on which one of us you looked at), and making a number of trips (thanks to the tea) to the squat toilet which was one of the cleanest we'd seen and had the fun factor of one being able to see the ground beneath the train right below it! At last the train pulled into its last stop and we disembarked into the frenzy of taxi/rickshaw drivers spotting the white people and descending upon us. Luckily, our blue-turbaned guide found us immediately and led the way to our bus. And I was delighted to find that it as smaller than our other monstrosity, not bright blue and yellow, and did not have TOURIST written boldly across the front :)

After settling our things into the Ritz-Carlton Hotel (which we did not find to be too ritzy), we headed out to a delicious long afternoon lunch and then made our way outside of town to the Waga border crossing where we were going to watch the closing of the border between Pakistan and India which happens every night. I didn't really know what to expect, but I would never have guessed what we were in for! The border area consists of two decorated gates, flags, and grandstands on both sides (in different syles) so that people can watch the show every night. We got to our seats and there was music playing while people lined up for the opportunity to run the length of the street carrying an Indian flag. Eventually the music changed from random to more popular music from Bollywood movies and a dance party started in the street with a bunch of young (and some older) women. I really wanted to dance with them, but was cowed by not knowing what they would think of me and, much more of a factor in my decision, the female soldier who was doing crowd control in our area terrified me! So I just enjoyed their enthusiasm from afar. Most of the soldiers wandering around were either in camo or plain officer uniforms. A few, though, were wearing tan uniforms that stopped mid-thigh where they met these big white shoe covers and headdresses (for lack of a better word) of bright red feathers - and they were definitely chosen for their height already, so they towered above everyone else. At 6:15pm, right on the dot, the official show began. A man who clearly was the emcee of the situation pulled out a microphone and started cheers and went around pointing to the different sections to encourage the crowd to cheer louder. It absolutely had the feel of a giant pep rally or sporting event. Now, I had heard that the soldiers would be "preening" for one another and there really is no other way to describe it! The Indian feathered guards went through an elaborate series of lines, marching, gun-handling and one-by-one made their way to the gate that met Pakistan where they would literally strike a pose of showing off their muscles to the Pakistani guards on the other side. It sounded like similar things were going on on the Pakistan side, but I can't say for sure because everytime our side was quiet enough to hear anything from Pakistan, Indian trumpets blared and the crowd erupted again, determined to out-shout the Pakistanis. [Aside: we could see from our seats that people eventually arrived on the Pakistan side, but that there was maybe a tenth of the people over there than on the India side. Hemanshu said that it is always like that and it is probably 1) because of the outcome of the conflict, the Indians feel like they have a lot to prove and want to clearly demonstrate their national pride, and 2) Amritsar is only 30 kilometers from the border while the closest Pakistani city is 60 kilometers.] This whole display went on for at least 30 minutes before the flags even were involved. The ceremony then finished up with a looong process of opening the two gates, preparing to lower the flags (both right next to the gate and the ones that were on top of the respective gate buildings), and then lowering them all very slowly, precisely and with much trumpet-blasting, all synchronized so that no one flag was lowered before others. I have never seen anything like this display of national pride, especially not with something that happens every night! It was pretty awesome to witness.

On our way back to the hotel we decided that we would meet at 6am to get to the Golden Temple early the next morning, so we had nothing planned for the night. Hemanshu said that he was going to go to the Golden Temple around 9:30pm because he likes seeing it during different times of the day. Prof Mason, Catherine, Amy, and I went with him (involving two interesting rickshaw rides that I rode backwards on and my eternal gratitude to Amy for holding me tightly the whole way to keep me from falling). Some of us wanted to explore individually so we agreed to meet back at the entrance side of the temple pool an hour later. It was a breath-taking place at night. The brilliant gold of the temple shone beautifully in the dark water of the large pool that it sits on and there are thousands of people who visit it every day. The temple complex never closes (though the holy book gets "put to sleep" around 10:30 or 11 each night), so many people come and sleep in the alcoves, and there is a kitchen that serves about 40,000 people a day for free. I wandered very slowly just drinking everything in and trying to ignore the fact that I was drawing as many stares as ever. Less than a quarter of the way around, a group of 4 girls (ages 7-14) said hello to me and then proceeded to adopt me into their group. I sat down with them and we stumbled through introducing ourselves, them teaching me that "hanji" means "yes", and establishing that 3 of them were sisters and the other was a schoolmate. They then took me back to the alcove to introduce me to their mother, two older sisters, and older brother (I think I startled him because he was sleeping, but they woke him up to introduce him to me, and he looked rather surprised to find a white girl sitting at his head when he woke up, haha). I sat with them for a few minutes, took their picture, and then said that I was going to keep walking to meet my friends and enjoy the temple. We parted with smiles and "namiste"s all around and I continued on. The girls caught up with me not 20 yards away and said they'd walk with me. Though communication was a major barrier, we laughed through our language blunders and I was happy for their company as it made the guys (and one awkward middle-aged man) who had been following me disperse. We talked some about family (I successfully told them that I have two older sisters and a brother-in-law) and the youngest, Trinka, told me that I looked like Hannah Montana, haha. At one point, two families with small children were walking with us and took pictures with me, too. We got back to the appointed meeting place and the girls decided to wait with me so they could meet my friends. While we waited, I met a very nice young woman named Rosie who approached them to ask something about her phone service (I think) and then realized that we couldn't understand one another so she translated because she is a student at the University of Delhi and speaks good English. I also had a brief but nice conversation with an older Sikh man who asked me where I was from and then told me about a school in Amritsar for Christians who are converting to Sikhism. Hemanshu, Prof Mason, and the girls arrived shortly and after introducing Catherine and Amy to my new friends, I had to tell them goodbye and we headed out. It was such a lovely experience and I was so grateful that I had decided to come to the temple that night or I would have missed it! Prof Mason said that young women who are alone seem to have experiences like that much more often than any young men he's ever taken to India. I guess people are more prone to adopting the lost looking girls, haha.

After a very short night's sleep, we loaded up into the bus for the whole group to the Temple. It was storming when we woke up, but the rain stopped as we gathered in the lobby. The overcast feel of the sky, however, stayed which meant we had the lucky experience of seeing the Golden Temple in the daytime without being scorched by the sun as we walked along the white marble. On my way to gather in a corner with our guide, I saw my friends from the night before and we exchanged happy waves and then a sweet voice next to me said "Do you remember me?" And it was Rosie :) We chatted just for a few minutes and then had to separate as I went to hear the guide. It was nice to feel like the night before was real. There was a miscommunication on my end somehow and after initial talk from our guide, I thought that we were wandering on our own again and would meet in an hour at the front. I had a lovely hour of taking pictures, having pictures taken of me (sometimes just me standing there, sometimes with people being in them with me), and appreciating the beauty of the inside of the temple because I hadn't gone in the night before. I wandered to the meeting spot on time and didn't see anyone, but wasn't worried. I turned my phone on just in case and then pleasantly continued to take in the people bathing in the pool, the small children playing, and the general colorful mix of people all around me. When 5 minutes had passed with no sign of any others from the group, I began to wonder if I had somehow been left, but wasn't concerned and just decided I would stay there because that would be the easy place for them to find me when they came back to look for me. My phone rang then and it was Hemanshu telling me that they were all in the inner sanctum of the temple and would be at the front in 15 minutes or so. I was surprised that they had all managed to end up there at the same time, but happily sat down by the pool to wait and have some quiet time of prayer. When they got there, someone asked me how I had gotten lost. "What do you mean 'lost'? Were we supposed to all be together?" Apparently the guide was going to lead us all around the temple! Though they got to see the kitchens which was interesting, many people had wished they could have wandered on their own, not finding our guide to be their favorite. Prof Mason asked me how I had escaped and I said I didn't realize that I had. He said he kept trying to, but the guide would corral him back in, haha. Most of the group was hungry for breakfast by this point, but Prof Mason and Hemanshu wanted some alone time (sans guide), so the two of them, and Catherine, Amy, and I stayed for another hour or so. After a lovely morning there we went to a street restaurant and had a delicious Indian breakfast since the hotel breakfast was already closed, went back to the hotel and took a 45 minute nap, and then reconvened at noon to check out of the hotel.

Our train back to Delhi didn't leave until 5 so we visited the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial, the site where British troops opened fire on hundred of unarmed Indians without warning, many of whom jumped in a well to try to escape. It was a beautiful but heart-breaking place to be. Hemanshu said that this event was a turning point in Indians' understanding and unification towards separating from the British. I was reminded of the scene in The Patriot when Colonel Tavington has the church full of villagers burned down, unable to see that nothing could and would strengthen the resistance more than actions like that.

After an ice cream stop and a delicious lunch (the ice cream was while we were figuring out where to go to lunch, haha), it was back to the train station and another 6hr drive of conversation, tea, reading "Three Cups of Tea", and attempting to doze. Then an exhausted return to Neeti Bagh and finally some sweet sleep :)