Sharing Dal and Devotion: Amritsar’s Golden Temple
By Erin Foran
India’s large cities are known for their clamorous bazaars and the vibrant, fast-paced bustle of daily life. The city of Amritsar, situated on the border with Pakistan in the north, is no exception. Camel-drawn carts, cars, and brightly painted bicycle rickshaws vie for space in the narrow streets, which are lined with open shop-fronts filled with basic and extravagant wares. It is the middle of our five-week journey to India, and my friend and I have little room in our backpacks. Still, upon our arrival in Amritsar we cannot resist trying on embroidered Punjabi slippers and hand-painted sandals at five or six shops. Each seller ushers us in and tries to read our taste in shoes. Will it be glitter? Ornate flowers cut from camel leather? We window-shop on our first day, but leave the city with a few pairs each.
As much as we love bangles, books, and delicious samosas, we re-focus our afternoon walk after the diversion into the shoe shops. We are on a mission, unfazed by the tailors who beckon with swaths of rose and turquoise cloth, “A sari, Madam?” Through the heat and dust we make our way to a line of auto rickshaws, ducking the drivers who summon us, and weave our way through to a white gate. This is our reason for coming to the city. We have arrived at Harmandir Sahib, the Golden Temple complex.
It is true that Amritsar can feel as overwhelming as parts of Delhi or Agra; it has a population of over one million people. Added to the local population are the thousands of Sikh pilgrims and tourists who daily visit the city in order to pray at Harmandir Sahib. Yet, the temple complex itself is an oasis of calm. We find the Guru Arjan Dev Niwas hall, one of the free dormitories where pilgrims can sleep. There is an area reserved for foreign tourists here, and though the rooms are stifling and windowless, there are lockers for our bags and groups of other young travelers lounging, guide books open, on the modest beds. We decide to stay.
The free dormitory is our first introduction to one of the tenets of the Sikh religion: equality. While the children still smile at us shyly and the teenagers egg each other on to ask us for photos, we feel welcomed here to participate in the same way as everyone else. We are tourists, but pilgrims too. We cover our heads with scarves, abandon our shoes and walk through a pool of water to cleanse our feet, then enter the marble walkway which leads us to a koi-filled lake. In the middle lies the Hari Mandir temple, small but gloriously ornate and plated with gold.
We spend the afternoon cross-legged by the water’s edge, humbled as visitors at the scene of devotion as people bathe in the lake or wait in the long snaking line for their turn to enter the temple and be in the presence of the Granth Sahib, containing the most famous Sikh gurus’ writings. People carry garlands of marigolds and leaf-wrapped sweets as offerings. The chanting and singing of devotional prayer is continuous; it is easy to sit for hours, entranced by the glittering temple and the sounds emanating from within. We make our way inside the temple in the afternoon, where my companion sits to capture the artwork in her sketchbook (photography is not allowed in the sanctum), and I observe the young children as they in turn gaze in wonder at the decorations and paintings surrounding the holy book.
Dinner is another egalitarian experience. We enter the dining hall among hundreds of people, finding seats on the floor. The room reverberates with the clanging of metal dishes as volunteers swiftly move up and down the rows of people, scooping dal and rice into our plates. Payment is by donation or whispered thanks.
Night at the Golden Temple is magical. The temple, illuminated, appears to float on the lake. Its reflection shimmers in the inky water. After dinner we sit again along the marble promenade. The chorus of prayer has continued into the evening, and seems to lift and grow louder as a wind picks up. It is a warm wind, accompanied by sudden sheets of violet lightning. The air is charged with electricity and spirituality. My breath catches in my throat as the heat lightning cracks across the sky. And just as the lightning ceases, so does the singing of ragas. It is time for the Granth Sahib to be ceremoniously carried from the temple to its evening resting place in the Kotha Sahib.
India is a place of great diversity. Many religions and cultures co-exist here, as do many landscapes, from desert to rainforest. In the morning we are off on a long train ride to our next destination, drizzly McLeod Ganj in the foothills of the Himalayas, where we will eat Tibetan momo dumplings and turn Buddhist prayer wheels at the Dalai Lama’s compound. We leave Harmandir Sahib in the early hours as more Sikh devotees stream through the gate, eager to spend the day in prayer and wonder in the glow of the Golden Temple.
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Erin Foran is the poetry/photography editor for The Wanderlust Review.
Photograph appears courtesy and copyright of the author.
This entry was posted on Friday, July 31st, 2009 at 2:00 am and is filed under Non-Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
