Amritsar and the Golden Temple

Photo album
Amritsar and The Golden Temple

9/9
We had to be up at 3:30am in order to be in time to catch our
bus out of Dharamsala to Amritsar. We walked with our rucksacks in pitch darkness across the hillside path, to Daramkot village where we had organised a taxi the night before to take us down to Dharamsala. We had to wake him up by banging on the metal shutters at the front of the restaurant that he owned. We were predictably running late, and we swerved into the bus station at exactly 5:00 (the time of planned departure) waving our hands out the window to signal to the bus, that had its engine running, about to leave.

 It was a 6 hour journey - exhausting enough, but nevertheless nothing like the painful bus journeys we had suffered in the mountainous Spiti valley with its steep ascents and descents and winding corners. This was on straight roads, between towns and villages, where the only swerving was the leap-frogging of the line of slow moving vehicles on the side of the road - bicycles, oxe pulled carts, and cycle rickshaws piled up comically high with cartons, mattresses or whatever other random commercial product they had been hired to transport. Horns blared non-stop as vehicles jostled to over-take, and then to stake their possession of the centre of the road to competing traffic coming unnervingly fast in the opposite direction.
  Approaching Amritsar was a culture shock - it was the biggest city that we had been in for ages, taking interminable time to get from the outskirts through choked traffic into the centre. It was dense with concrete, street sellers, auto-rickshaws, commercial activity of every kind, and the cacophonous noise of vehicle horns. The people too were different, with their straggly long beards and turbans - almost frightening looking to newcomers. We had entered the Punjab, where the majority are Sikhs, bound by their faith to grow their hair and beards long, and wear turbans.


 We knew we would get hawkers pestering us as soon as we stepped off the bus, but even while were still on the bus, two people had hopped on
  - "you want rickshaw?"
  - "I have rickshaw, you need hotel, good price...".
  We were determined not to accept their undoubtedly over-priced offers, but despite repeated rejections these same two people stuck with us as we descended, and started to find our way. Every time we went to anyone for information, they interjected to make sure their business opportunity wasn't lost, driving us nuts. We wandered around to try to shake them off, even at one point, in a rare near-loss of temper stating very conclusively
 "thank-you, we don't need your help.....good-bye", but it was not enough. Our stamina eventually out-lasted them and they tired and backed off to a distance to observe. We took the opportunity and hurried over to an auto-rickshaw stand. Several others immediately gathered around us in an oligopolistic auto-rickshaw price fixing racket, so we left them and found an isolated rickshaw driver who was dropping off a passenger. I managed to negotiate a price and Fia was already in the back seat when the hunting party of other drivers arrived, shouting with fury. Our driver crumbled under the pressure and raised the price. It was a small difference, but we would have nothing of it, and summoned Fia back out of the rickshaw. No sooner had she hauled her bag out than he re-capitulated to our agreed price. Fia climbed back in again, starting to look fatigued with India. Amazingly when we arrived at our destination, our rickshaw driver now reclaimed the higher price, and didn't give me back my change. Having refused to get into the rickshaw before, I now refused to get out. We stared at each other, each restating our position and refusing to move. A new crowd was now gathering around the rickshaw, peering in, fascinated in the discussion, some offering their viewpoints while others were thrusting postcards into my now dangerously temperamental hands and putting a head scarf on my head in infuriating attempts at a sale. Finally he sensed that he was up against an obsessive, reached into his locker and handed me back my change. This was hard work.

We found our way to the temple guest houses, dodging touts on the way, our rucksacks clearly seen as an invitational beacon to lucrative business.
 "Pakistan border - closing ceremony?".
 "No thank-you".
 "Shared jeep, very cheap, leave 3:00"
 "No thank-you".
  "Head scarf sir?"
 "No thank-you".
 "No entry to temple if no head scarf sir"
 "No thank-you"
 "Sir..Madam...no entry if no head scarf".
  We walked through gateways to enter the outer area of the temple and then up a small flight of steps into the temple guest house.

 It was austere and monastic, with information panels for pilgrims and rules of the house on every wall. A number of arched windows like ticket counters at a railway station, were buried by the funnelling jostling queues of people. We stood looking lost in this confusing bedlam, and in no time, we had several people around us trying to lead us in different directions but none able to explain where and why. We were unsure who we could trust or rely on though we later found out that the temple employees wore blue turbans.
 Out of the blue a young man appeared amongst the group and started to act as a translator. We were so numbed by now to the persistent overt and covert sales hassling that we weren't sure that we could trust him initially, but he turned out to be genuinely helpful and was a great reassurance for us. His name was Navdeep, and he too was staying in a room (which turned out to be next to ours) with his family - all here to spend time at the temple.

We ended up in a very large room with a double bed and an additional single bed that the girls shared, a balcony and a bathroom. It was relatively clean, though nothing worked in the bathroom - flushing the toilet was manual using a bucket, and washing was also with a bucket with no hot water - it caused a lot of screams and complaints but in fact was quite refreshing after the humidity of the day. The room though was cheap, and more importantly, it was in the temple complex, sharing the austerity and monastic atmosphere, whitewashed walls, tiled floors, heavy wooden doors and railings, and amass with pilgrims from all walks of life, all here for the same reason. Next door to our building was dormitory accommodation, offered free to pilgrims, and even the floor-space outside our room had mattresses laid out any by evening was full of people.
 Trying to find somewhere to eat, we unintentionally circumnavigated the outside of the temple before we ended up in a very smart, little bit expensive hotel / restaurant in front of the main entrance and with a rooftop which allowed us a wonderful view. We ate well, allowing the girls a very late breakfast of choco pops and eggs, while Jacqui and I took a vegetable tandoori platter and some form of curry.
 We passed by our guest house room to leave our shoes before heading into the temple. The whole area was seething with pilgrims. The guest house entrance was full of new arrivals, those leaving, and others sitting around the floor in large family groups amongst their humble luggage, and the street outside was bustling with pilgrims on their way to or from temple visits, queueing for tea and crowding around the drinking fountains. The temple is the holiest Sikh site, and attracts more visitors than the Taj Mahal.



Bare footed and heads covered with scarves we padded on smooth sun-warmed marble tiles, along a pillared avenue towards the temple inner courtyard, the sounds of chanting and the glimpses of gold ahead through the pillars already starting to send little shivers of expectation through us.

 As we waded through a shallow basin of feet-cleansing water, a tall, warrior looking bearded guard, armed with an alarmingly large spear, made his way over to us. We braced ourselves, wandering if we had already unknowingly trespassed against a sacrosanct tradition but he only asked us where we had left our shoes and let us pass. 

 As we stepped inside the inner courtyard, the atmosphere hit us like a wave. Our skin tingled as we stood speechless, our senses invaded by the beauty of the scene in front of us. The palatially large square courtyard of marble-white buildings, with a polished black and white tiled walkway, partially covered by arched roofing, surrounded a glassy lake that shimmered with the hues of pinks and blues from a dusky sky. Dominating it all, was the temple itself, majestic and mythical in the centre of the lake, in glorious radiant gold, with its flickering reflection beaming up from the water. The ceaseless chanting of the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh bible, rang from the loudspeakers and echoed across the lake and around the courtyard.

 The walkways were lined with pilgrims, men and women, young and old, some prostrating themselves, touching their foreheads to the marble floor, some immersed in the lake, washing themselves ritually with the holy "nectar" ("Amrit" from which the town gets its name), or hands clasped above their heads in prayer.

 Despite Sikhism's birth out of the Hindu faith, founded by the first Guru, Nanak, in the 15'th century as a reaction against some of the less palatable elements of Hinduism such as castes and Brahman elitism, the overall impression inside the temple is more  Islamic than Hindu. The overwhelming clean marble whiteness is reminiscent of the beautiful Mughal Taj Mahal in Agra, and the lack of idolatry, a principle shared with Islam, and the consequent simple black geometric patterns that adorn the floors and ceilings, as well as the decorative cupolas around the outer walls bring a resemblance to mosques, in contrast to the gaudily coloured Hindu temples crowded with sculptures.

 Amritsar, the city, was founded by Guru Ram Das in 1574, ironically on land given by Akbar, a Muslim Mughal emperor, displaying a religious acceptance of which he became renowned. His tolerance however, was not sustained by his successors - emperor Jahangir martyred the Guru Arjun, the fifth Sikh Guru of ten, only two years after the Guru had completed the construction of the original temple at the end of the 16'th century, for refusing to bow down to Mughal superiority. It heralded a period of aggressive and courageous defence of the Sikh faith and independence against ruthless Mughal pressure for allegiance, that reached a peak during the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb who with his massive armies managed to temporarily scatter the Sikhs from the Punjab region in the 17'th century, though not defeat their spirit for survival.

 It was a later Mughal, Ahmad Shah Duran, that in 1761,  destroyed the temple when he sacked the city, only for it to be rebuilt three years later, gaining the golden roof in 1802 in a subsequent addition. The Sikh museum, also in the temple complex, has many historic artistic depictions of the gruesome tortures that the Sikhs suffered in defence of their identity at the hands of the Mughals, shown in full graphic gory detail. This courageous history in the face of aggressive persecution helped to shape the fierce warrior side of a faith that otherwise emphasises compassion and equality, and many years later, although they also had their ups and downs with the British, formed a regiment in the British army which earned a reputation as fearsome and courageous soldiers.  
 Despite the history of hostile conflict, the city survived for centuries with an integrated population of Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus and in fact had a Muslim majority when in 1947, the British struck an arbritary line through the middle of the Punjab just to the west of Amritsar, as India became an independent nation. Little wonder that Islamic architecture had such a profound influence.

 We wandered around the perimeter, taking our time to soak in the spirituality of this haven as the sun set and the billowing clouds breathed their last breaths of glowing colours down to the reflective waters, before being swallowed in the darkening sky. The temple was bathed in the pink of dusk, then metamorphosed magically into a night scene, with lights waking like stars for their shift of duty to sustain the brilliant luminosity of the Golden Temple amidst the twinkling holy lake.

We joined the milling crowd and crossed the causeway that links to the centre where the Golden Temple seemingly floats, and entered through one of the four entrances, constructed, some say, in line with the ancient tents, and symbolising the Sikh openness to other religions. Here, amidst candles, canopies, cushions and rugs we saw in flesh the source of the musical chanting that diffused to every corner of the complex. The floor space was crammed with turbaned pilgrims, faithfully listening to every word being spoken, and some following in their own books, and in a clearing in the middle sat the group of granthis, the Sikh "priests" empowered to read the Guru Granth Sahib, chanting together, accompanied by musicians playing a type of ancient heavy accordion.
 Guru Nanak, the founder of this monotheistic faith was followed by 10 sucessive gurus. In the 16'th century, before the city of Amritsar was even founded, the 5'th, Guru Arjun assembled the Guru Granth Sahib, a compilation of more than 1000 elegantly hand-written pages in a book the size of a bed, consisting of scriptures, hymnal prayers from the previous Gurus, meditations and philosophical guidance on life. The 10'th Guru, Govind, announced in 1699 that he would be the last in the Guru succession line, and that the Granth Sahib, which would now adopt the status and name of a Guru itself, would be read by any 5 appropriate Sikhs. The sacred book sits in the temple during the day, pages open in living use, curved in the shape of the outstretched wings of a golden eagle. At night, the Guru Granth Sahib is taken from the central temple for the night and returned early in the morning, each time surrounded by an elaborate ritual ceremony.

 Exiting the central temple, we took a last tour of the lake. It had been a moving experience  - the haunting chanting that soothed and transported us, the sincere palpable devotion of the pilgrims, and the subliminal beauty of the Golden Temple complex in all its shimmering iridescence.

We were by now hungry and headed straight to the Guru-Ka-Langar, the temple dining room. We had heard much about this before arriving in Amritsar, and on our way into the temple had already located it from the cacophany of clanging metal plates. This amazing place is financed by donations, staffed entirely by volunteers, and manages to serve free meals to feed 80,000 people per day, and double at the week-end, every single day of the year.

 We joined the flow of the crowd, and were handed our metal plate and bowl, and were directed around to the side of a building and into a huge hall, almost the size of a football field, doors open along all sides, and whirring ceiling fans working tirelessly to maintain some movement of air. Hundreds of diners were sat on mats on the ground in long rows along the length of the hall, plates on the ground in front of them, eating with their fingers. As we walked in, at each turn there was someone to direct us, like in the car park of a major attraction, until we ended up taking our places in a newly forming row. The flow of people into the dining room was ceaseless, and everyone obediently filed into the current row, new rows starting as soon as one reached the end of the hall. When the last row reached the end of the hall, the incoming queues were efficiently diverted at the source to start filling a different hall.
 No sooner had we sat down than servers were walking up our row, each holding a bucket of food - rice, dahl or vegetables - which were ladled onto our trays. Another server brought chapatis, and dropped them with exageratted gusto onto the diners open outstretched hands, one after another as he raced up the line, getting irritated if a diner was not ready in position to accept the chapati and hence hindering the flow of the production line. Yet another brought water, in giant kettles from which he poured from a height to the bowls on the ground. We dug in, along with everyone else, enjoying the meal, loving the atmosphere and smiling meekly at the row facing us, who clearly saw us as their dining entertainment.

This incredible dining phenomena was more than an attractive feature of the Golden Temple. The Langar is an age old institution within the Sikh faith, since Guru Nanak himself. The concept of shared meals provided by voluntary workers, open to all, where everyone takes their place on the ground, with the same food, in total equality is a warming tradition of Sikhism, still relevant today and one of which they are noticeably proud. Historic paintings in the museum show scenes that looked uncannily like ours that day - rows of bare-footed diners, heads covered, same clothes, same plates, same food - only the strange bemused family of  tourists sitting incongruously in the middle was missing.

 One of the paintings shows the Gurus wife serving as a volunteer. Another shows the visit of the Mughal emperor Akbar, sympathetic and impressed with the Sikhs but nevertheless an emperor, deified in his own culture, deliberately alienated from the common people by authority, splendour, opulence and an army of deferential staff. Here, though, amongst the Sikhs, he was obliged to sit on the ground in a row shared not only by the Guru but by villagers of every status, while his guards and staff stood behind awkwardly, waiting. Akbar was reported to have made an offer of gold as his contribution to the meal, which was refused on the basis that "God will provide". 

  The rejection of the Hindu caste system, which underlies the concept of the Langar, is a stirringly impressive principle of the Sikh faith. From the outside, the caste system looks irrationally unjust, and rejection of it seems natural, but inside India, though officially outlawed by the government, the system is so ingrained in every facet of society, probably ever since the Aryan migration into modern day India, that defying it seems almost impossible. Equality for women is also part of their ideology, though I read a newspaper article interviewing one of the Sikh temple administrators, who illustrated the equality accorded to  women by showing that as part of the Langar, they were given the opportunity to serve the community by making the chapatis in the kitchen. Probably the western world would have another angle on that demonstration of equality.

 Everyone ate their meals faster than we did, and our row vanished leaving us sitting in a space, while the volunteers were already washing the floor with giant squeegees, having to make a loop around us. As we left, filing back downstairs past kitchens with men standing on stools to stir cannibal-sized cooking pots, we were directed to toss any remaining food into a large tub, and our plate and bowl into another. Just behind was the source of the din that could be heard from our room in the guest house. We peered around mountains of stacked plates and bowls to see an army of people, standing along waist-high troughs, arms elbow-deep in the water. Stacks of plates were being carried from one trough to another, where they were being washed and moved down the trough, stacked and moved to the next one, in one continuous flowing movement. Every now and then a crate stacked high with plates would be wheeled out, where it would join the pile of clean plates to be handed out to new diners, in one continual cycle of re-incarnation.

We peered in to take some photos, and were welcomed with smiles, and before we knew it, we too were standing at the troughs, washing plates, cheerfully throwing them down the line, the girls carrying plates from one washing trough to another.

 Fia and Tamsin absolutely loved it (though we never seemed to have been able to create the same enthusiasm at home). I was soon recruited in a side role, armed with a giant squeegee and directed to move up and down between the washing troughs clearing the water away. My mentor followed me, pointing out pools of water that needed my attention, and giving me tips to try to bring some  effectiveness to my squeegeeing, which no matter how hard I tried, seemed to be spreading rather than collecting.

 Eventually, despite false encouragements from his side, I think we both recognised that I was probably not the man for the job, and I resigned before being sacked. It took a long time to drag the girls away, and even as we were starting to escape, the tall, long-bearded man that had been supervising the collection of bowls started to talk to us, telling us proudly of the operations of the Guru-Ka-Langer. Our interest and awe motivated him, and the conversation turned to a guided tour - we were shown the vegetable cutters - all seated on the ground, heaps of onions, garlic, chillies surrounded them - and on into the piece de la resistance...the chapati machine. More than a machine, this is a whole production line of giant noisy mechanical processing units and conveyor belts occupying a building the size of a tennis court. We followed the process from flour through to a line of flattened rounded dough being passed over an elongated fired oven, metamorphosing into fresh, delicious smelling chapatis that fell off the end of the conveyor belt into a metre wide basket. The machine churned out chapatis continuously, if we understood correctly, for around 18 hours per day, and was supplemented by separate teams rolling chapatis maually.


 By the time we were on our way out, Fia and Tamsin had been re-recruited and were working with a team of ladies sorting the chapatis that were carried in from the machine.
 With their bare feet, and their head scarves, they looked the perfect peasant ladies and relished the part. Checking, stacking, then piling into new baskets ready to be carried upstairs, one man on each handle, and slapped into diners outstretched hands.

 The logistical accomplishment of this continual seamless mass catering phenomena are mind-boggling, but it is the inspiring kinship, the altruism and the compassion that flood it with warmth, that truly touched us.

When we finally dragged ourselves away to return to our room, Navdeep was in the corridor, and invited us to meet his family.

 We followed him into his room, where his Father, huge knot of extensive grey hair on top of his now un-turbaned (he hurriedly replaced all 6 metres of it for the photo!) head, Mother, and Aunt were all relaxing after their day of prayer at the temple. We sat on the bed, sharing a box of tasty small biscuits and chatted with them all, mostly through the interpretation of Navdeep. They were warm and very welcoming and we were on a high on Sikhism after our emotional and inspiring day. They were delighted to hear our positive experiences and were only too happy to fill in gaps and answer questions we had.
 His Father and Mother were both retired teachers and his mothers sister, an active teacher. Navdeep himself was studying a PhD on neurological disorders - he had an excellent knowledge of English. We agreed to meet up with Navdeep again the following day.



10/9

I was up at 6:30 and nipped into the temple to see it at a different time of day. I was amazed to find that it was already throbbing with life as fervently as it had been the previous evening. Men, stripped down to underwear and turbans were taking their morning dip, holding their noses as they dipped their heads under, or hands clasped together in prayer.

 The sunrise that I had hoped to see was hidden behind a mask of haze, but the magic was sustained with the mist that rose from the lake as the warming air of the new day kissed the cool water.

 I came back for a refreshing shower, with a jug and a bucket of cold water, and tip-toeing around so as not to wake anyone, I headed off again to face the railway booking office, on the other side of the temple.

 An hour later, I came out triumphantly with the reservation that would get us to Jaipur the following day. I had had to endure close body contact with my jostling fellow ticket-purchasers until finally gaining my position at the window when I expanded my body as widely as I could over the small opening to block the probing arms trying to push reservation forms or money through it, while  pressing my ear to the perforated glass window, struggling to understand the quiet, curt, and heavily accented voice of the clerk the other side.

 We ventured away from the temple to find a slightly more westernized breakfast and ended up having to rush back to make our rendez-vous with Navdeep, before heading to the park.


 Jallianwala Bagh is a pleasant breathing space in a chaotic and frenzied city, though with cracked concrete paths leading between untidy shrubbery and scorched grass, and modernist concrete water fountains that look as though they haven't seen water for years, it would not be a particular draw if it were not for the significant historical event that unfolded there on 13 April 1919, when British colonial soldiers opened fire at close range on a crowd of 15,000 defenceless people.
 The time was one of growing revolutionary sentiment, and increasing British desperation and insecurity. At the end of world war 1, many Indians were expecting progress in their political objectives of self-rule, as an expression of gratitude for their contribution to the British war efforts. Statements of intent were made by the British government, but on the street, the anxiety of the British controlling forces over the mutinous waves that were gathering momentum were leading to more restrictive measures. The Rowlatt act, which effectively suspended civil liberties in the name of stamping out rebellious influences provoked huge discontent, and Ghandi called for disobedience and satyagraha (peace) protest marches. The Punjab region was particularly active in its demonstrations, disrupting communication infrastructure, and violence erupted on April 10'th when a British soldier shot several protesters at a demonstration to campaign against the arrest of two prominent Punjabi nationalist leaders. The growing tension provoked the government to impose martial law on the state, and ban any gatherings of more than 4 people.
 A political meeting to protest against the latest measures was planned on 13 April, coinciding with the Sikh Baisakhi festival, resulting in a crowd of 15-20,000 people gathering in the park. The British authorities saw it as a revolutionary gathering and summoned the army. General Dyer, newly arrived in Amritsar only a few days before, lined up 50 riflemen who for a period of 20 minutes unloaded 1650 rounds of ammunition into the screaming crowd, killing 400 (up to 1000 according to other reports), injuring many more and causing mass panic as thousands made desperate futile attempts to escape the bullets. The machine guns, loaded on armoured cars, stayed unused outside the park only because he had been unable to get them in. The soldiers left as quickly as they arrived, leaving the dead and the dying without assistance.
 Incomprehensibly, aside from a few lost voices, his actions were initially lauded by the British authorities, and he was honoured for his execution of duties, but the news of the event had a long lasting effect on the morale of the Indians and the determination and unity of the independence movement.

  The park today is an eerie and vivid reminder of the events - with the help of Navdeep, we recounted the story to Fia and Tamsin while we looked at the bullet holes in the walls against which many vulnerable people were shot and on which people desperately clambered to escape, and looked down the deep well where people had drowned after having jumped in, out of utter helplessness. We tried to imagine the sight of 10-15,000 people crowded into the park - it must have been a dense human mass that Dyer's
soldiers were ordered to fire into. The girls listened open mouthed to this account of one the most brutal displays of British administration - it was a shuddering and confusing jolt to their usually clear cut distinction between "goodies" and "baddies".

 A small visitor centre in the park showed news clippings at the time, such as the publication of the letter from Nehru, later to become the first president of independent India, voicing his deep concern over the "crawling order" - a further desperate and inconceivably oppresive rule imposed by the British authorities after an assault on a British lady. The rule stated that Indians going down the same street were compelled to "crawl on all fours, lying flat on their bellies". Other newspaper clips reported the assasination in 1940 in London of Michael Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor at the time, to whom Dyer reported and who condoned his actions. Udham Singh, the Punjabi assassin, had witnessed the massacre 29 years before, when he had vowed to take revenge.

Having been in the park much longer than we had expected, we said hurried goodbyes to Navdeep, exchanged contact details and took photos. We were touched with the unquestioning kindness he showed through our rapid acquaintance and as we left him, he was still flowing with affection: we were truly a humble family, he was delighted to have met us, his father had prayed for us, and God bless us.

 We did a tour of the temple museum - full of historic artistic glorifications of the bravery of notable Sikhs who had fought with courage in the many battles to defend the faith against invaders or enforced religious conversion, mostly Muslim, and many depicting the gruesome torture that they endured at the hands of the Mughals in an effort to get them to renounce their faith. The later battles with the British were also featured - peaceful demonstrations but often ending in deaths, and a poignant recreation of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

  We returned to the Guru-Ka-Langar, the communal temple dining room for our lentils and rice for lunch. Tamsin and Fia begged us to let them back in to the washing-up area, but we had no time - we had a jeep booked to take us to the Wagah border.

Before we had arrived in the city, we were not particularly interested in the nightly ceremonial closing of the border post between India and Pakistan, but from the moment we stepped off the bus, we were beseiged by touts all proposing transport to the event, eventually to the extent that we didn't want to risk missing it. So that afternoon we climbed into a jeep, not complaining too loudly that the best seats had been reserved for us while the 6 other passengers, all Indians, were stuffed into the bench-like seats in the back, and joined the rush of vehicles that jostle each other in a mad race along the 30km road to the border post.
 On the way we stopped for a quick visit to the Sri Durgiana temple, a Hindu temple built in the style of the Sikh Golden Temple, with the central temple in the centre of a square lake. Some reports indicate that it was also built in the 16'th century (which I assume are some of the original historic inner temples), and some in the 20'th. It is dedicated to Durga, a fearsome warrior Goddess, who rides a tiger, brandishing weapons in her multiple hands while she rids the world of demons.

In its own right it was a beautiful temple, and unique amongst Hindu temples given its style, but having spent the last two days in an awe-struck daze at the Golden Temple it was impossible not to make comparisons, and unfortunately the Durgiana temple came out badly. The exterior around the lake looked like unused outbuildings, the lake itself had surface scum and floating rubbish collecting against the sides, and the central temple, with only token golden patches on it, was reached via a causeway roofed in an untidy scaffold shell. The temple is held in high esteem, and very much alive with Hindu worship, and it is of course an unfair comparison, but we were left wondering why on earth, architecturally, someone would try to imitate such sublime beauty.

 Our jeep edged as far as it could up the road approaching the border. It was jammed with parked jeeps, mini-buses and rickshaws, having already deposited their customers - the remaining stretch was to be on foot. The atmosphere was humming - beeping horns of the last traffic trying to elbow its way into spaces to park, swarms of people rushing to get to the end of the road to get their space for the spectacle, dodging the vendors of water and snacks shouting their wares in what must be their only hour of business for the day, and a humid heat that clung to you like a wet-suit.
 Bags were allegedly not allowed at the border gates, and there were small stalls along the road that offered the service of guarding them for the duration of the ceremony. Having been uncomfortable about leaving valuables in our temple guest house, we were loaded with everything - 2 cameras, a smart phone, 4 e-readers and a laptop. We were now even less comfortable about leaving them at this open make-shift stall on the roadside. We made a compromise, emptying as much as we could from my bag - cameras round our necks, zoom lens crammed into one pocket, Kindle e-readers squeezed into the other, and put the laptop  into Jacquis smaller bag, which we hoped we may be able to get through. We then filtered our way into the river of dense people, flowing along the road towards the border post.

 After a while the moving crowd concertinaed, slowed down, and then stopped. We waited in ignorance for 10 minutes or so before it started moving again - this time slowly, and as one homogeneous sweaty heaving mass. The stop-start continued until we started to see the blockage. Soldiers mounted on large intimidating horses were agitatedly pacing up and down the front line of the crowd, struggling to hold it, to control the flow to the border gates. The crowd by now had compressed to unbearable levels - people from behind were pushing forward, people in front herded back by the horses. Sweat was now running down our faces and the thick air seemed to be drained of its last ounces of oxygen. We felt like we were melting. We had to stand firm, scrummage style, to prevent the occasional surges squashing our little girls who, smaller than everyone else could see nothing but legs and bodies.

 Finally, just when we thought we couldn't stand it any longer, our turn came, and we were part of the batch of the crowd released, running along with the others to what appeared to be the security checkpoint. I was separated from Jacqui, Fia and Tamsin into a men's line, where I queued until I was invited to stand on a step while I was frisked, having to explain my vast array of electronics in every pocket. I was through, but only to be greeted by Fia and Tamsin rushing up to me with worried faces. Jacqui had not managed to get through with her bag. The policewoman had directed her back to the stalls on the road - 20 minutes walk away, and the other side of the pressure cooker mass of sweat and flesh that we had just endured for 40 minutes. I saw her across the barriers - she was in no mood to tackle it all again, and shouted that she would see us back at the jeep after the ceremony. It was a bitter disappointment.
 Fia, Tamsin and I continued on. People were now milling around freely, but in front of us was the back of the large grand-stand from where people could watch the performance. The crowd inside were on fire - it sounded like the winning fans at a football match.

We could only see the stairs up to the seating, but even they had become so jammed solid with people that they had frozen to immobility. People hanging onto the railings in a desperate attempt to retain at least the step they were on, with what must have been an almost imperceptible view of the border gates where the ceremony would unfold.
 We stared at the situation, wandering how on earth we were going to get to see something. Time was ticking away, the ceremony was due to start in minutes. A vendor came up to me and offered me something - I dismissed him politely without even knowing what he was selling. As he left, he pointed over to another gate. We walked over to take a look. A policeman was manning the gate, with a crowd of people standing there all offering reasons why he should let them through. The sign on the gate read "V.I.P".  We had nothing to lose, and I called over to the policeman - he came over, and I muttered something, not really knowing what to say to gain entry. He asked to see my passport, checked it in detail, then suddenly ushered us in, while simultaneously pushing others back. We felt like we on the invitee list at the nightclub. There were a further two passport checking barriers, and another body search before, with enormous relief we suddenly found ourselves inside, with the grandstand lining both sides of the road to our right, and the border gates themselves to our left. It was packed, and a highly elaborately dressed soldier directed us to sit on the pavement. It wasn't luxury but it was a front seat.
  The atmosphere was already electric. Music was playing through booming loudspeakers, ladies were dancing their socks off in the road, and the crowd of 8000 was bursting into deafening cheers, pumped up by the whistle blowing and vigorous arm swinging of an energetic compere. We had been expecting something militarily formal and what we were seeing was overwhelming.

The performance began. A commanding soldier began screaming commands to his troops. He exaggerated them and drew them out, with the crowd roaring with cheers in between, the compere agitated like an orchestral conductor. The last command was the big one - he held his note, drawing out the word for an interminable time while the crowd hollered in delight, urging him to keep going.

         Then the action started. A troop of soldiers, immaculately pressed beige uniforms, sparkling black shoes, a bright red shoulder strap and turban-like hat with yellow tassles and the most incredible mohican style plumes, came storming out in  a dashingly quick march, heads held high, and strode in front of us, stamping their heels down as they stopped and turned. The ceremony unravelled with a parade performance that mixed disciplined military excellence with comical spectacular gusto, involving twisting and turning of legs, impressively high goose-stepping John Cleese style and endless exaggerated stamping of heels onto the ground. The fervour of the crowd intensified with every kick.
 It was impossible not to be carried along with the excitement. The tension mounted further when, after the portentous prelude on the Indian side, the huge border gates opened, to expose for the first time the Pakistani soldiers, in black, but virtually identical ceremonial uniforms, performing their own pageantry with their own supporters and grandstands. The two sides came together in a climatic face to face posturing finale, like the pre-match war dance of the All Blacks Haka, inches separating one side's high kicks from the other side's stern faces. Then there was an alleged but unnoticeable hand shake, the flags came down, the gates were slammed shut with the last heave of bravado, and it was all suddenly over.

The theatrical ceremony has been unrolling every night since 1959, 12 years after the line was drawn slicing India into two countries, leaving the village of Wagah with an east side in India and the west side in newly created Pakistan. Millions of Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims raced across the border line to avoid being alienated in a community of a different faith, provoking sectarian violence in both directions, which spiralled rapidly into an an unprecedented bloodbath. Trains of refugees were attacked and slaughtered mercilessly, and neighbour turned upon neighbour, with an estimated million lives lost in the sapce of a few months.
    

 The border ceremony is an expression of pride and nationalism, and has apparently been toned down over recent years as a reflection of improving Pakistan / Indian relations. The handshake is a recent addition in 2010 on agreement between the two border security forces, who despite the confrontational aggression shown in the performance have clearly managed to tolerate each other sufficiently to agree on uniforms, and synchronize the dance...I mean military..movements. For many years, goods crossing the border had to be unloaded from the truck on one side, carried by porters across no-mans land, handed over to porters on the other side, and then reloaded onto waiting trucks. Only in October 2006 did the first truck pass through the border crossing.
 We returned to our awaiting jeep. Jacqui was sitting demoralised inside and had to make do with living the experience through our accounts and photos.

 On the way back, there was another temple to visit - the Mata Hindu temple. In Amritsar's ability to produce the unique, this temple was no exception. It is fabricated as if it is carved out of a cave, and visitors follow a looping route through synthetic underground tunnels, with added features like water to wade through and holes to squeeze through to recreate that real caving experience. The spiritual significance of this choice of style was I'm afraid to say, beyond us, but it added some interest, of course Fia and Tamsin were delighted to find a temple built like an adventure playground. In between shrines, a cavern was filled with statues of a whole pantheon of Hindu Gods and Goddesses in display cases, another with mirrors - it was somewhere between the fairground house of fun and a museum. Every now and then, incongruously modern photos of a gentle looking elderly lady appeared - who we managed to establish was Lal Devi, a 20'th century Hindu saint to whom the temple is dedicated.

 When we dropped out of the end of this labyrinthine circuit, we landed in the main hall of the temple at the time of the puja (prayer). It was humming with people chanting and the the smell of incense, and we hovered around to absorb the atmosphere, before climbing back into our jeep to return to the temple.