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| A Divine Image store in Amritsar |
In India, I am surrounded by the sacred almost everywhere I go; it is intermingled with the mundane in such a way that the whole place seems to be both holy and earthly at the same time. At the side of the road or in the center of a market, I find small shrines to deities or simply clad sadhus, wise men. The city is filled with ancient Banyan trees, which are worshiped and embellished with decorations, pieces of cloth, pictures of deities, and other items of worship. The majority of cars sport some (or many) items of worship or symbols of the sacred; even large commercial trucks and businesses are decorated in constant reminder of the omnipresent divine.
It is no surprise, then, to learn that India is home to many destinations for pilgrims of many different faiths. I have decided to visit as many of these pilgrimage sites as I am able to, seeking to better understand the sacred and the self just as any pilgrim might.
The first of these pilgrimages is to Amritsar, home of Harmandir Sahib, the Golden Temple of the Sikh Religion. The city is to the northwest of Chandigarh, into the Punjab region, home to a concentrated Sikh population. The Golden Temple is the home to Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book, and a worthy pilgrimage for the many, many Sikhs we would see.
It's 5am and the car is late. We've hired a car and driver for the entire weekend at the price of about $50 each (I'm still continually stunned by the prices of services here). After two hours and many phone calls to groggy coordinators, the car picks us up and we begin the four hour trek to Amritsar.
Hardly a voyage worthy of a true pilgrim; others are taking the path by foot. While they are earning their right to be at such a holy place, I nap in the back of a bumpy car with a semi-suicidal driver. Virali reads a popular Indian love story in the next seat, and every kilometer we're close to the place that every Sikh wants to visit in his lifetime.
Amritsar is astoundingly busy; the traffic and people create a kind of ongoing stream of living, traveling creatures, disorganized to the point that it should not function at all. But somehow, between the nudging forward of the noses of autos, the squeezing into impossibly tight spaces by cyclists, the wedging and swerving of rickshaws, and the dance of pedestrians, it all works. If there is a collective consciousness when people exist together, it most truly functions in this traffic.
The driver stops when we reach the signs allowing foot and rick traffic only; it's not a difficult trek, since the movement of the crowd directs and eases us toward this golden Gurudwara. We follow this pattern of human movement almost unconsciously, stepping aside every few yards as we're approached by salesmen offering cloth for head covering and bottles to gather water from the sacred pool upon which the Temple sits.
In a street that appears to be much like any other, with a regally-faced wall of stores on one side, we come to a stairwell and a sign for shoe deposit. Leaving our trust and our shoes with a man behind the counter, we ascend to walk barefoot on the streets of India.
We cover our heads out of respect, something which is required of all guests, and travel toward a large entryway between the ornate storefronts. Washing our feet in a marble stream before the gateway, we prepare for entry. We touch the threshold, then our hearts, heads, or faces, a highly individualized gesture.
I'm almost certain I'm going to die at this point, since water + marble /the world's clumsiest Kelly= certain doom. Whether due to some divine grace or sheer luck, I survive, and suddenly, we are there.
People all around us are prostrating at the sight of it, many silent in awe or reverence. We come to our knees and bow.
The Temple itself is a treasure trove of symbol and ritual which any anthropologist of religion would be quite eager to see. My own knowledge of Sikhism is a bit fundamental, not nearly to the depth that I would like and that would grant this experience a new level of richness. However, as with Hinglish, I am able to pick up bits and pieces of the rich conversation the place conveys about the Sikh faith.
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| A guard at the Golden Temple |
As a persecuted minority throughout much of the faith's existence, Sikhs were frequently forced to use self-defense and came to develop a somewhat militaristic philosophy, resulting in the required carrying of a small,symbolic blade by Sikh men and the taking of the last name “Singh” (lion). The Golden Temple itself has been attacked a number of times, and one can see the fusion of practical defense and spiritual forms. It is certainly an easily fortified position, and all around are guards carrying tall spears. At this point, it appears that the defenses are primarily symbolic, bringing attention to the willingness of the faithful Sikh to defend his faith.
At the edges of the pool, men are removing outer layers of clothing and immersing themselves and their sons in the water. In one enclave, we follow the other women to bathe our feet, splash water toward the Temple, and then over our own heads. There are many stops in the (clockwise) journey around the water, sites of special meaning, pages of the holy book, shrines to the great Gurus. We stop to pay our respects. Reverence. It is reverence for me which defines my experiences with Sikhism, both today and in the past. The Sikh people show outstanding reverence in the temples, before shrines, in the performance of ritual, even to themselves and their fellow humans, in their behavior and self-presentation. While it is a tenant of Sikhism to allow hair to grow naturally, it is impeccably groomed and arranged, to the point where a thin comb is an item of religious significance. The turbans that men wear are usually quite beautiful, often colorful and tied with great care. I have always seen Sikh men and women treat those around them with respect; the Golden Temple itself is a place in which people of all stations can come and worship under God as equals.
When we've explored the outer grounds of the Temple, it is finally time to join the amazing queue waiting to get in. It now becomes an exercise in surviving an Indian crowd, in moving past the “personal bubble” so valued in my previous life. If I'm going to live in India, I'm inevitably going to be touched (over and over and over again).
There are several thousand people inside the walls, and most of them are waiting in the queue that fills the bridge to the temple and beyond. Soon after we join, we are surrounded on all sides by people, touched on all sides by fellow pilgrims. I'm in one of the holiest places on Earth, trying to redirect my thoughts away from whether or not I'm being groped.
After the first half-hour, it becomes more comfortable. The crowd is nice and warm in this Indian Wedding Season, and I come to a brief epiphany when I notice the smell of these thousands of people. There is no strong smell of humanity, no malodorous breeze, simply the smell of India. This is a smell I've come to associate with the breeze of Chandigarh, something perhaps in the dust or the air itself, which has the somewhat earthy quality of summer camp and is altogether pleasant. Of course, when I begin to consider, I remember that I am here with those whose faith is expressed in cleanliness, in rituals of cleaning which must have been especially important in the morning, as they prepared to set out for the Temple. Behind us, I can hear a teacher speaking to a crowd, who sit reverently before him. 
About an hour in, we're past a Golden archway, but the Temple still seems distressingly far away. It's become a bit of a trial, and I feel as though I am finally, in a way, earning the right to enter a holy place. Those who are carrying plates of leaves as offerings rest them on their heads, or on the people next to them. It's around this time that a woman near us faints in the midst of the crowd. There is a melodic chant on the bridge's loudspeakers, and as we get closer, more and more people join in.
It's an excellent feeling to reach the threshold of the Golden Temple, to awkwardly reach down and touch it, fighting the crowd's pressure holding me up. Inside, we're all eagerly pushing to get our chance to prostrate to the center of the Temple, at which sits several devotees (priests, monks?) around a shrine. The shrine, with its rectangular shaped item covered in rich cloth, reminds me a bit of a colorful funeral scene.
I somehow manage to prostrate despite the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, leave 100 rupees by the shrine, and in exchange one of the men hands me a bright orange cloth wrapped around two first-sized sweets in the shape of sand-dollars. I'm one of the few to be carrying one of these bright gifts, and I feel quite lucky.
The temple is lovely, ornate. Upstairs, we can look down upon the scene with a calmer perspective; here we find dozens of people nestled in corners for the chance to simply rest in such a place. It was most definitely worth the wait.
After we've left the Temple, our exploration of the grounds is complete and we move to leave. On our way, we pass a kitchen filled with people. The philosophy of the Gurudwara is a generous one; food is offered to all visitors for free, with the only stipulation that they leave no waste. I am told that any of the resources of the Gurudwara are free to guests so long as they are available. One can clearly see the Sikh philosophy of charity at work in the streets outside the Temple, which are filled with beggars, young and old. Those in need station themselves here, as opposed to outside of the nearby Mandir.
We come to the shoe station and redress our feet. The world around me feels different, I feel different, with hidden feet and uncovered head. But we are in Amritsar, and there is more to see.
Later, we return to see the glory of the Temple, alight in the evening sky.
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