Amritsar: the final chapter

At this point, it has now taken me longer to blog about India than it did to actually plan and go on the trip itself. It would be nice to wax poetic about how this is due to the indescribable beauty and mystery we witnessed throughout our travels, but the truth lies closer to the facts that twelve cities= twelve blog posts and I am a procrastinator. Those immutable impediments aside, I have finally reached the end of the Indian adventure.

On the same day that Laura and Lena were boarding flights home, I was hopping a train up to Amritsar, the holiest Sikh city in the northern region of Punjab. It was now late December and the temperature was dropping sharply, which combined with exhaustion from a pretty hectic schedule, had me sick and coughing like tuberculosic chain smoker. This was justifiably stressing the mother of the sweet, quiet boy who was seated next to me on the train for a five hour ride. I felt bad for them both every time she came over to the boy with a new batch of vitamins for him to take.

After fitful attempts at sleep on the train, I had every intention of resting once I checked into the chilled-out Grand Hotel. Of course, that plan took a hit once the front desk clerk mentioned that there was a guest looking for someone to join a tour that required a minimum of two participants. I figured I could either sign up right then and there or be in the same position as the solo guest the next day.

So I joined Cindy, a young woman from Boulder who was studying Hindi in college for a city and border ceremony tour. We began with a visit to the Mata Temple, named after Mata Lal Devi, a female saint associated with the well-being of children. The temple is so incredibly, majestically cheesy that I almost completely forgot about being sick. Even from the outside, it looks more like the entrance to an attraction you would find in Coney Island than a place of worship.

The theme continues inside with statues that looks like ventriloquist dummies and a fun-house type labyrinth that has the visitor crawling on all fours through a tunnel in one room and walking through a water-filled trench in another. It was seriously awesome. For anyone, who like myself, delights in visiting bizarre attractions, this is seriously a must-do.

Another one would have to be our next stop. We drove 28 kilometers to the town of Wagah. This is the site of the lone border crossing between arch-rivals India and Pakistan, an area predictably occupied by numerous military installations. Every evening at sunset, there is a ceremony to mark the closing of the gate between the two countries.

Huge crowds gather on bleachers on either side to watch a highly choreographed high-kicking Rockette-worthy routine performed by uniformed guards. On the day we were there, the scene was mobbed with Indian tourists and school children chanting, screaming and generally creating a very sports-event type of vibe.

There were vendors selling flags, banners, popcorn, peanuts, sodas…all that was missing was the “We’re #1” foam fingers. Being two of the very few non-Indians in the crowd, Cindy and I were directed to the VIP area. . Even from there, we did not have a clear enough shot to video tape the ceremony, but, for anyone that is curious, it's on YouTube. Trust me, it’s worth it.

After all the theatrics are done, the soldiers lower their respective flags in unison making sure that no one flag is ever higher than the other. The border is officially closed for the day and the entire mass of humanity pours out into the parking area. I had faint hope for ever finding our driver in that mob, but he obviously had experience with clueless tourists because as soon as we came within 200 feet of him, he was jumping up and down, waving his arms, doing everything short of shooting flares to make sure we found our way back.

We had one final stop on our tour, Amritsar’s pride and joy, the Golden Temple. It was a photo of the glittering beacon which appears to float in the middle of a reflective lake that convinced me to add the city to my itinerary. Seeing it for the first time in the evening, all lit up and buzzing with worshippers was the perfect introduction. Since Cindy had already been there during the day, she knew that the lengthy line to enter the temple was a slow moving one that we could never do in our short one hour visit, so we opted to walk around admiring the temple from all angles and put in a quick visit to the free dining room which serves an average of 40,000 people a day.

The following day, I returned with more time, although my worsening cold caused me to quickly cancel any plans of doing so at sunrise. With the weather so cold I could see my breath and a persistent haze that was bound to squash any possibility of a dramatic photo op, it was an easy call to make. When I did get to the temple, the line was just as long as it had been the night before. The temple is open 24 hours a day and I suspect the line at this, the Sikh’s holiest site, never really wanes. I waited for well over an hour, coughing like a fiend and hoping the entire time that I would not pass out.

The crowd, composed of people of all ages holding leaves with some kind of sweet inside to have blessed, did not seem to mind one way or another. When I finally got inside, it was only for a brief moment. There was a group of people chanting and playing music in the center of the room, while worshippers threw coins amidst much pushing and shoving. It was madness (although it could have been worse had they decided to throw the orange sticky-looking and now holy sweet they all had in hand).

Durgiana Temple: the Hindu answer to the Sikh's Golden Temple

After all that excitement, I returned to the hotel to relax, recoup and indulge in my newfound passion, a Bollywood movie. I was now at the end of my visit to India and it felt good to just kick back and reminisce on all I had seen. With that in mind, I would like to tackle one final great Indian myth: that the visitor will either love it or hate it, no in between. Had I been there only a week or maybe two, I would be willing to call this an exaggeration.

I initially liked India, a lot, but it wasn’t the passionate love at first sight/ immediate loathing that everyone talks about. However, something happened at about the two week mark, the initial novelty had worn off and I was no longer fixating on the little things (ie. cows in the road, manic driving, random public urination), I was focusing more on the boundless beauty of the country and its people. I was getting overwhelmed by the consistency of the kindness that was shown to us everywhere we went. I was awestruck at India’s ability to surprise me with sites each more beautiful than the last. Simply put, I was, and still am, in love with Incredible India.