Day 13 - Amritsar - where all is not Gold

Saturday 12 November

Oddments: Last night I buy a bottle of Dabur's cough remedy, "fortified with tulsi, Mulethi and Banaphsa." A generous slug of vodka (from the little bottle at the bottom of my rucksack) improves it no end, and my cough disappears once more. Pace Sulabh Toilet Museum: The caff where we eat has a unique urinal, surmounted by a tangle of bare electrical wires leading to various lights and switches. It's a good job I'm not 7 ft. tall. I watched some "Hinglish" (or is it Punjish in Punjab?) TV, including a soap called Mrs Tendulkar (probably about a scheming mother-in-law - they usually are). The actors are much paler-skinned than any Indians we see on the streets. This is especially marked in the adverts, including one for "ammonia bleach cream" which lightens the skin in 15 minutes. Hmmm. Michael Jackson has a lot to answer for.

Amritsar is only marginally less filthy and chaotic than Varanasi. There are more beggars here, too, many with wasted limbs. One man propels himself on an improvised skateboard. He has no legs. The local tuk-tuks have clattery engines like old Atco mowers and belch exhaust fumes. I sort of wish I could wear a face mask if it would not look so wussy. But I get to visit the Golden Temple 3 times in one day. RB has a touch of the runs and decides to play safe and stay near the loo in his room until midday, so I go solo.

The Golden Temple is one of the world's most recognised buildings, but it's hard to imagine how it can co-exist with this dense, noisy, dirty urban environment. But it does. I buy a Rs. 20 stringed head-cover, leave my shoes at the depository (like a vast school shoe locker room; my token is no. 4279), and join the throng, padding barefoot along the street into the compound. Through the cool foot bath, up the steps, and suddenly there it is. The central gold-domed Harmandir itself seems to float, shimmering on the "pool of nectar", connected by a causeway from the west end. Crowds of worshippers (or the merely curious) are here, though few palefaces. This is too out of the way for the regular tours. The space is so ample, its surrounding colonnades so white and cool, that it seems to absorb all comers. I circulate slowly and watch. Two American girls sit at the pool edge in rapt concentration, each holding up one finger. This a source of some amusement even in this society which is so tolerant of eccentricity. Some men strip to their boxers and enter the pool, holding their hands in prayer while they dip their heads under water 12 or more times; The female bathing area is screened off in one corner. Discreet notices near the shallow edge warn "Please so not throw eata ble in holypond and sit by folding legs. (Manager)" Shoals of fat golden carp slurp the surface maybe hoping for "eata bles".

I join the queue to cross the "guru's bridge" to the Harmandir Temple; very slow moving and sweat-inducing in the morning sun. This is where the original book of Sikh sacred scriptures is housed, under a golden vault, and musicians sing chants which are broadcast across the complex. I shuffle slowly round before returning to the perimeter terrace. I cup my hands, Anglican style, to collect the sweet "prasad" food (referred to as Communion on one notice). During the afternoon I return with RB (who has recovered). While he looks round I sit and watch then take a lie-down on the carpet in the rest hall. I leave via the free literature stall, where I pick up a pamphlet titled: Human Hair - A Factory of Vital Energy.  Seems appropriate. As I collect my shoes, I chat to some teenagers on a school trip. They have bought swords to take home. Not plastic or replica, but full scale, curved steel swords with razor-sharp blades (I feel with my finger.) Pity their teacher doing the risk assessment (?). Said teacher wears a T-shirt saying "Logic is blind; love has eyes." A fellow philosopher, obviously.

Mid-afternoon, on a whim, we join 5 others in a small tour company taxi and go to watch the famous sundown "ceremony" of goose-stepping soldiers in ridiculous uniforms at the India / Pakistan border, 25 kms. out of town. This must be the driver from hell, weaving crazily between the traffic in gaps as thin as a sliver of loo paper, horn blaring, jumping red traffic lights (to be fair, these seem to be generally ignored.) I'm in the front seat, but I daren't even rest my elbow in the window in case it gets severed. Driver proudly shows me a book of comments from previous customers. Most write as if satisfied, apart from some who write in Foreign, or in code, e.g. "We got there in one piece." So do we - just - but too late for the ceremony, which has already finished. Driver must have known this. "We woz conned" (again). But we do have the unforgettable experience of being squeezed to pulp in a heaving crowd of fired-up Indian patriots. It's a very popular show.

In the evening, I go a third time (solo) to see the GT after dark and take the (free) meal. This is a very Sikh institution, but open to all comers. Every 30 minutes or so, 800 free meals are served. We queue up, charge in when the door opens, collect metal plate, bowl and spoon, and sit in long facing lines on mats. The servers go up and down the lines, delivering dollops of food onto the plates - black dhal, lentils, sweet rice pudding and chapatis; water is sploshed more-or-less accurately into bowls from watering cans (what else?). Most diners chat with their friends, but there is no lingering. As soon as we finish, we leave, handing over our plates to a human conveyor belt that tips away leftovers, throws the plates with a great clatter into troughs, from where they are washed ready for the next sitting. Luckily I am not selected for wash up duty!

We collect our luggage from the hotel and go early for the train. Our long wait gives a chance to get to know Amritsar Station. We go to platform 3, as directed. Many people are already waiting; some, mainly older and roughly-dressed people with sacks of luggage, must have a long wait ahead and stretch out, asleep. I give my left-over chapati to a lame dog, and an old Punjabi in a black turban asks me to buy him tea, then, by way of thanks, engages me with a monologue in mixed Punjabi and thickly-accented English. He's an educated man, he says, once served in the army, and (his favourite line, much repeated), "I'm the only clerk in the village, you see." 

Later, there is an announcement (English version unintelligible) whereupon some pick up their bags and head over the gantry or cross the tracks to platforms 4 / 5. The platform refreshment-wallah comes over to tell me that our train will now depart from platform 5, though RB observes that there are still a lot of people waiting on No. 3. "That's because they live here," I point out. Platform 2  / 3 is their home. Platform 4 / 5 is home to other groups. A few women lie like so many corpses under the stairs, some clasping tiny children. Then there are the "railway children", about 15 small boys who mooch in the semi-darkness beyond the steps. They are very black with clothes the colour of grubby sackcloth. We have all read about them, but it is a shock to see them for real. One little lad sits solitarily on the stairs holding a bottle of correction fluid to his nose. Another lopes along the platform, sniffing at a piece of paper. One says Hello as I walk past, but mostly they just stare blankly. This is a world away from any golden temple.