Amritsar….

Sunrise on the Golden Temple (Harmandir Sahib)

I know i whinge an awful lot on this blog, and im sure of the 60 or so people that read this thing ( i have the stats) most of you have rolled your eyes already and are about to switch over to something more interesting, but before you do that let me assure you this entry will not be in that mould at all. It is after all many many years since i’ve been able to cross something off of my “things to do before i die” list, and thankfully i have done exactly that with my recent trip to Amritsar.

For those of you that aren’t aware i have decided to return to Sydney early. There is far too much risk associated with me travelling solo due to my passport details, so im waiting out my last week or so in Mumbai shopping and indulging every gastronomic fantasy i have (next week is rasgulla night, which will be followed by paneer tikka masala night, which will be followed by paneer tikka biryani night). I remember in my last post ending with a sentence that stated i should make the most out of this “nothingness” that i was experiencing, and i guess i did just that when i booked my cousin and myself in to fly to Amritsar for a day or two.

Probably one of the most important things for me to see during this trip was the Golden Temple (or to be precise Harmandir Sahib). I know there is an awful lot to see in India and im sure i will eventually get to see it but this place has always held a special place in my heart and being able to see it, being able even on some level to “feel” it is a memory i will cherish till i breathe my last. I have honestly vowed to visit Amritsar every single time i am in India from this day forth, without a doubt there is a magic there that i am definitely not capable of surmising in words, but that won’t stop me from trying.

We began our journey to Amritsar as guests of Dr Malliya, a quick stop over in Delhi (which was also quite special for me, an entry i will save for later) and we were catching a small, cramped, rickety flight into Amritsar airport. The landing was a borderline calamity and our disgruntled pilot swerved the plane around as if it were his “Baap’s” (a reference that will probably make more sense in Hindi, but Baap refers to father, and Pilot Jose was driving the plane like a spoilt teenager would his fathers Benz). Before i knew it we were in a taxi and on our way to Amritsar City to find a hotel and take our first glimpse of the Temple, i must admit the excitement to see something that only days ago felt like an impossibility was boiling over and after dropping my luggage off and taking a quick shower i was knocking on my cousins door and asking him to accompany me, it was his third trip so my excitement was lost on him but luckily he obliged and we were on our way.

We reached the main entrance to the temple and upon seeing the entrance i was rather disappointed. I had immeasurably high expectations of what i was going to see, and a feeling of dread over came me as i believed at that point anyway that the temple wouldn’t be as beautiful as i had imagined. For some reason i was expecting grandeur from the get go and thought i was in for plummeting disappointment yet again, but as i scarfed my hair washed my feet and raised my head to look through the entrance, i was amazed at just how beautiful the Golden Temple was. We had reached during the afternoon so the domes of the mandir (temple) were catching and reflecting the sunlight, creating an unalloyed gold sheen that was beautifully reflected in the sky blue pond of water (or “Amrit Sarovar” from which the city gets its name) surrounding it. It was perfection, and i don’t mince my words for a second. I would be a fool to say i was not overcome with emotion, a mish mash of awe, reverence, gratitude, and pure joy had entered me, “The Word Sublime” was manifest infront of my very eyes and i ran down the stairs of the entrance and prostrated in complete reverence, my forehead placed on the cold marble for longer than most as i spoke a few silent words to myself. I was in Amritsar, i was seeing the Golden Temple, i was blessed, i knew it, and it was then that i knew this trip no longer was the disaster i had spoken of previously. A definite balance had been brought into the cosmic calamity that was my Indian odyssey, and all the bitterness and resentment of the last few weeks simply melted away, i was at peace with India, and was convinced she no longer hated me.

Lining up to enter the Temple

We began our journey around the Sarovar circling the actual mandir (temple), my cousin a Sikh himself explaining to me the significance of all that we encountered, it was a learning experience even though i had grown up with many Sikhs as a child, and a Gurudwara (Sikh temple) is by no means an alien place to me, I have always for some strange reason felt more at home there than i have a temple. My respect for Sikhism and Sufism for that matter too has been with me since i was eleven and luckily enough for me it was something encouraged by my rather spiritual and open minded parents. I don’t say this in an attempt to paint myself as a spiritual person, Lord knows i am borderline agnostic at times, and that my bitterness with certain established movements that have played a large part in my upbringing have in recent times left me questioning even that. But i can’t deny a belief in the universality of all religions, in a belief of inherent human divinity and in the equality of all in front of a higher power whatever he or she maybe. So when we made the final turn of the Sarovar and entered the line that would lead me to the inner sanctum of the Golden Temple where the Guru Granth (original Sikh holy book) is kept, i felt for the first time in my life a communal oneness with those around me, a single communal focus of reverence, and a congregation so egalitarian that i knew for the first time what true equality is. Amritsar at that point became the culmination of 22 years of spiritual theory that had previously failed to experience true egalitarianism anywhere. For all the theory that had been taught to me i have been unable to digest aristocracy as a side effect of institutionalised spiritual thought. This has never been the fault of those embodying the oneness, to blame are those who in their stupor have mangled instruction to suit their own needs and sadly many of us have quietly accepted it. Perhaps i am too Marxist in my views that i cannot accept hierarchy within the allegedly spiritual, but within Amritsar i felt we were all “red” spiritually at least to some degree, and the disappointment i had felt with a recent pilgrimage to a separate place of worship, mixed with what i believed to be the failure of my trip to India, then spontaneously deciding to go to Amritsar, seeing the Granth, bowing my head in reverence, drinking of the Amrit (the water of the sarovar) and exiting the abode was a mandala of action that when viewed from atop had come full circle and created an experience that has now renewed me and for that i will always love Amritsar. It has filled me with a hope, that had gone brittle, and renewed an idealism that had soured long long ago.

I must confess this post hadn’t gone the way i intended, the plan was to surmise the actual trip and go into its intricate details, breaking down my daily visits to Harmandir Sahib bit by bit, describing the happenings from the western eye, David Attenborough wild life documentary-esque, but i failed. Whilst typing, the images i had described earlier came rushing back, and i couldn’t help but translate what i felt. The finer details of the temple, its historical and political significance are important details that deserve mention, but they can be found elsewhere by someone who is an authority on the issue, i can only write about what i felt, that is the only authority i have and with that i am comfortable, my apologies to those that may have wanted something more informative in design, the post did start out that way and i may have laid the bait for it, but i came to the conclusion midway through the piece that i would be more myself if i wrote what i felt, and what i felt at Amritsar for the entire day and a half i was there was something special, to me anyway. Wether i will take this learning with me from this day forth will be a test of character, one that i can’t say with confidence i will succeed at, but for now i will do what i did at 5am on Thursday morning as i sat just outside the inner sanctum of the temple, listening to the kirtans (devotional hymns) that were being sung as the Granth was revered immediately opposite me, cracklings of the rising sun spiriting the sky… basking simply basking in the magic of one of the few places in the world that holds out on its promise of divine egalitarianism, then closing my eyes and feeling it, my idealism renewed.

-n-