Sunday Times - Travel (19 June 05) - Darbar Sahib

[JagtarSinghKhalsa]

The Sunday Times - Travel

June 19, 2005

Manic Sikh preachers

Richard Green finds inspiration in the congregation at the stunning Golden Temple at Amritsar

The flat, dusty streets of Amritsar, 250 miles northwest of Delhi, were choking with traffic and hawkers. The temple gates were almost within reach and the postcard-pushers knew it. I’d been polite so far, but now I waved my arms about and shouted, “Shoo!”

I walked into the temple compound, still swatting the air like a honey-coated Scot in summer, but suddenly the midge-like hawkers were gone. It was as though an invisible force were stopping them from entering. Glancing back, the most pesky postcard-seller caught my eye and briefly interrupted his Churchill-ian sulk with a smile.

I relaxed immediately.

At a busy row of benches, a greying lady in a rose-red sari mimed that I should take off my shoes and socks. She removed hers, too, then scooped up mine and bustled over to a long counter. Exchanging them for tokens, she hurried back and pressed a metal disc into my palm, closing my fingers around it as though it were precious. My grandparents used to do that when treating me with a five-pound note: I’d not thought of that for a long time.

She gathered in her sari and led me to a sawn-off oil barrel. It was full of headscarves. The few men not already wearing turbans were pausing to grab temporary head cover, a requirement for entry to the temple. My helper was more diligent, though — rejecting several scarves before teasing out the right one, Ali Bongo-style. It perfectly matched my shirt, and a tall Sikh boy with an insurmountable grin stopped to tie it on. My self-appointed chaperone single-clapped in delight.

Next, she led me to the entrance proper, where we paddled through a shallow pool to cleanse our feet. She held my elbow for balance and we climbed the steps together.

At the top, she leant against a column and proudly pushed me forward. There, framed by the white arch, was the 400-year-old Golden Temple of Amritsar. It was familiar to me from pictures in countless Punjabi restaurants, but in real life it was much more impressive. Shimmering in the heat, it loomed lightly, like a mirage. Its giant gilded strongbox glared bullion-brilliant, and paradoxically appeared to float at the centre of a giant olive-green pool.

My companion sighed contentedly, namaste’d me goodbye, and walked off along the marble poolside path.

EMERGING FROM the inner sanctum, where Sikhs were filing past their holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, I walked by a formal grassy area. Having just bathed ceremonially in the pool, men were drying their long, long hair in the sun.

Further on, a crowd milled outside a large brick building, where a toothy man handed me a large metal thali tray, big and round as a hubcap. A young girl in western clothes said hello and asked me where I was from. She explained that this was the langur hall, where free meals are served round the clock.

It was a two-storey building the size of a Victorian school. Catching my bemused look, the girl launched into an explanation. “Fifty thousand people a day eat here, can you imagine? Guru Nanak, our founder, started it so that all Sikhs should eat together and show we are not agreeing with the caste system, like in Hinduism, and that men and women aren’t keeping separated, like in Islam.

“The people cooking and serving are volunteers, too,” she continued. “All sorts of people, you’ll see. We are calling it seva. It is the voluntary work we are doing at a temple.”

A bell rang and the heavy wooden doors opened. We shuffled inside and sat cross-legged on hessian mats, at least 1,000 people, I reckoned. There was a tug on my sleeve: two wily little kids with worn-through clothes and quick movements asked my name, shaking my hand energetically. Opposite, a portly gentleman with a magnificent beard adjusted his sword and bowed his head minutely in welcome.

Sumpreet, the sassy girl from outside, explained that the boys were poor and possibly came to eat every day, while the man was a rich businessmen. A little shyly, she added: “I am studying for a geography degree, and come only when an exam is nearing and I am needing extra luck.”

A line of servers scurried in from behind. They slung chapatis and dished out dhal with hilarious inaccuracy, but they were volunteers, and already the next sitting was agitating at the door. It’s the same in gurdwaras everywhere; rich and poor, young and old, men and women, all eating together. The food may be basic, but the symbolism was fine fusion.

WITHOUT QUESTION, the Golden Temple has all the grace and beauty of the Taj Mahal. It’s not as big or as grand, but it is certainly as stunning. And while the Taj is a mausoleum, moribund except for the swarms of tourists and touts, the Golden Temple pulses with the energy of a thriving living community — the spiritual and temporal centre of the Sikh faith.

It is hardly visited by non-Indian or non-Sikh tourists, but there is an information office. After a cup of tea, information officer Sundeep Dalbir Singh (Retired) led me on a free tour of the temple.

Mr Singh was an old man with a forthright chest and bow legs. He had served in the Indian army before independence and referred to the Raj constantly, usually while staring into space, as though he were remembering a long-dead pet.

I followed him up the narrow steps to the museum, where walls were crammed with paintings. They were of the Sikh gurus and their followers, teaching, fighting and suffering, but mainly suffering.

In front of one particularly gruesome canvas, my guide scrunched up his face excitedly, like a schoolboy recounting an infamous scrap, saying that these three martyrs were tortured “very extensively, very extensively indeed”. Each “very” was projected loudly, like when a giant first appears in a bedtime story.

Another picture showed a Sikh being sliced in two with an axe — lengthways; and another panel brimmed with black-and-white photographs of Sikh youths who had been shot by the Indian army. They were like school portraits, but madly macabre, and “very extensively” began echoing all around.

So much for blood and guts, bricks and mortar — I had a killer theological question that I wanted to air. So I asked: “What’s the main difference between the Sikh salvation and the Christian heaven?” He thoughtfully twizzled his thinning grey beard and fell silent for a long time. A very long time. Then, with eureka certainty, he said: “The Christian heaven has better facilities.”

IT WAS mid-afternoon when the heat finally won out and, overcoming my shyness, I “went local” and joined some other pilgrims snoozing in the dependable shade of a loggia.

Lying on the marble was refreshingly cool, like face-pressing a fridge door in a heat wave; and wafting over the water on a jasmine-scented breeze came hypnotic chanting amplified from the temple roof. I fell asleep.

Suddenly, a young boy in a white dhoti was frantically prodding me awake, shouting: “The water is coming; the water is coming — look!” Advancing at a slow walk were at least 100 people. Sikhs were scoop-filling buckets from the edge of the tank, then passing them on to the next person in the chain. The pails swung across the crest of the crowd, water spilling and pails clattering. When they reached the last person in the row, the water was hurled over the marble. It was like watching a Sikh Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Then the crowd engulfed me, too. It was like a childhood summer — foot-stampingly happy days spent spraying friends with garden hoses. By the time a teenager tapped me on the shoulder and offered me a heavy pail, I was laughing aloud. “What on earth is going on?” I asked with a happy shrug.

“We are cleaning the pathway. Here,” he said, handing me a full bucket. I took the weight, then hesitated and looked around. This couldn’t really be allowed, could it — in what is the Sikh equivalent of Canterbury Cathedral? I lunged forward like a first-timer in a bowling alley and the water arched through the air, splattering onto the white stone. The youth beamed, grabbed back the bucket, then rushed off to the pool.

This was a long way from my village church in Derbyshire. All I remembered from there was frustrated fidgeting and drowsy daydreaming. What a shame that they never let us help wash the aisles.

Richard Green travelled as a guest of CTS Horizons (020 7836 9911, www.ctshorizons.com), which has three nights in Delhi and three in Amritsar from £995pp, including flights from Heathrow to Delhi, return train tickets to Amritsar, private transfers and local guides. Or try Colours of India (020 8343 3446, www.colours-of-india.co.uk), or Pettitts (01892 515966, www.pettitts.co.uk)

[Khalsa Fauji]

Gurfateh!!

I would be interested in asking Mr Sundeep Dalbir Singh what he meant by this:

“The Christian heaven has better facilities.”

:doh: @

Part from that sounds like the journalist had a nice stay :doh:

Gurfateh!!

[gupt_paapi]

Gurfateh!!

I would be interested in asking Mr Sundeep Dalbir Singh what he meant by this:

“The Christian heaven has better facilities.”

:doh: @ 

Part from that sounds like the journalist had a nice stay :doh:

Gurfateh!!

104281[/snapback]

FATEH ji

gosh wot u doing up so early?! or late lol

newayz yeh wot is dat abt?! quite a srt back but seems lyk the person had a good experience :TH: the descriptions actually reminded me of wen i went! no pic could take me bak 2 golden temple lyk that description. so acurate! :doh:

FATeh ji

[Khalsa Fauji]

Gurfateh!!

I would be interested in asking Mr Sundeep Dalbir Singh what he meant by this:

“The Christian heaven has better facilities.”

:doh: @ 

Part from that sounds like the journalist had a nice stay :doh:

Gurfateh!!

104281[/snapback]

FATEH ji

gosh wot u doing up so early?! or late lol

newayz yeh wot is dat abt?! quite a srt back but seems lyk the person had a good experience :TH: the descriptions actually reminded me of wen i went! no pic could take me bak 2 golden temple lyk that description. so acurate! :doh:

FATeh ji

104330[/snapback]

Gurfateh!!

K51NGH Gurmukh Piarioh Ji, 3.34am >>>> amritvela

Im now in my 4th night of no sleep :TH:

Anyways back to the thread before im accused of hijacking :doh:

Harmandir Sahib is out of this world

Gurfateh!!

Whoa did you know you're not allowed more than 4 emoticons per post??? Thats weird, i wonder why???