Jhanda uncha rahe humara...

The show is over...

Amritsar… Attari… Wagah…

Thats where my most recent travel took me to.

With a proud Sardarji and his Kirpandhari wife, the passage to the Indo-Pak border did not appear threatening in any way. The only discussion en route to Attari was about how it all once belonged to us- Indians, and now these barbed wires have been stretched to restrict us and our freedom.

The proximity of Lahore from Wagah is just that of Amritsar from Attari and once when this was all one, how people would cross over to get more esteemed degrees…but today all that is forbidden.

If you are an Indian and get a Pak visa, you can only visit three cities per trip (no thoroughfare to any other city is allowed) and that will also be approved by the Visa issuing authorities.

So after a half an hour long discussion, a poorly tarred road lined with trucks on either sides (Indian trucks carrying vegetables to Pak and Pak trucks carrying cement to India) welcomed us to a poorly guarded checkpost.

Even though the check post was not well guarded, the beautiful uniformed woman who would meet us five minutes later fisked us thoroughly and also gave instructions of- CHUP CHAAP APNE GENTS KE SAATH NIKALTE JAAYEGA.

The feeling was strange, fear mixed with thrill. The sight of hundreds of Indians sitting with Indian flag and shouting slogans, gave goose-bumps for first 3-4 seconds but soon after it all got monotonous.

While sitting there with a camera, the mind wandered and started to look for differences between the people on the two sides of the two Iron gates-one belonging to each country.

For almost ten minutes I sat like that and exercised my brain just like you would if you are doing a puzzle where there are two identical pictures with very easy to miss differences. But atleast in those you find something, like two buttons in one and three in the other one or a head with a cap with a bow and one with a missing bow…

But here, there was nothing, it was all the same, people on both sides looked just the same, the only noticeable difference was the dress and the language perhaps…all women on the other side of the gate were wearing hijab, while the ones on this side weren’t. The people from the other side were shouting slogans in Urdu while the ones on this side in Hindi.

It was like the soldiers from the two countries had signed an agreement of showing mutual disrespect to each other in order to entertain their audience.

They religiously performed the ceremony –  by thumping their feet hard on the ground to show their strength,  flexing their vocal chords too harshly to ensure loudness and then staring from their mustache to instill fear.

They were applauded by the audience on both sides, the flags were lowered, folded and respectfully taken by one of the soldier-artist inside the Border Security Force office…the ritual had come to an end.

The show had got over for everyone who had come all the way to the Indo-Pak border, they were all jubilant and proud of themselves for adding to the noise while shouting praises for their respective countries.

They had done their bit of PATRIOTISM…

But as the place got deserted, the seriousness which  for last few hours was being joked at- dawned to the gates, the passage and gradually veiled the whole place which was like a house-full theatre till hours before.

The artist-soldiers returned to their duties, positioned themselves at the designated places to now live the joke which they were ridiculing just a few moments back.

Photographed by ellievanhoutte

Train Station on the Outskirts of Amritsar, India
November, 2009

– License

Jallianwala Bagh is one of the most important places in the history of Indian Independence. It was a normal gathering place for recreation until 1919, but on 13^th April 1919 this peaceful squire witnessed the most brutal massacre from the British rule. Jallianwala Bagh is just 400 meter north of golden temple.  90 years ago on the Baisakhi festival, this is a holiday in Sikh Calendar. Thousands of pilgrims who visited Amritsar golden temple gathered in Jallianwala Bagh in the evening to celebrate Baisakhi. General Dyer and his troops blocked the narrow entrance which was the only way in and out of Jallianwala Bagh and open fire without any warning. Justifying the British has banned meetings, demonstrations and mass gatherings. The notorious massacre resulted in the death of 379 innocent pilgrims and almost 1200 where wounded. Today it is a memorial park with a huge memorial built in the center of this beautiful garden. A part of the ruined wall is kept to show the bullet holes. Amritsar has an airport and a railway station and several hotels and resorts for tourists to come, stay and study a chapter in Indian History.

This was all his idea — all I received was a waved invitation to shoot.

I’ve been talking about it so much, I thought you would want a chance to actually see the Golden Temple. Here it is at sunset.

In a Sikh Temple you can always get food and drinks for free, it doesn’t matter if you’re a poor indian man or a rich tourist. In Amritsar in North India is the Golden Temple, a pilgrims place for Sikhs, they have to go there at least once in their life. Like Mekha for Muslims. In this temple about 100 000 meals are provided each day!!! that’s why hundreds of women are constantly making bread behind the temple. Just amazing…

The Sikhs of the Golden Temple are many and varied. Though everyone is required to cover their heads (ours were covered with saffron bandanas we had bought outside) and remove their shoes, some take the rules as fashion inspiration. These men are Nihang (translated as “crocodile”) and are considered to be the Sikh “warrior saints”. The electric blue color is the Sikh color of war, and the saffron is the one of peace (the Nihang are generally dressed entirely in blue, all the time). Extra photo after the jump.

Acrobat: One who is skilled in feats of balance and agility in gymnastics.

In India time is very different, on our first day we already felt we had been in India for at least two weeks. The street is faster, your mind doesn’t even have the capacity to process half the things and you have to give up along the way. Imagine yourself being miniature and falling onto an old vinyl record going at 78 r.p.m., as you spin you try to grab onto something only to fall off hopelessly, well thats kinda what India is for a first time westerner like me.

So, day 11 and I feel like i’m living here, i’ve seen so much already. K went to the pharmacy and tried to explain my ailment, he came back with little orange sachets of something called ORS and as he told me his fascinating tale about the inside of the fridge where they store medicine I noticed the ORS expiry date is 2004. The medicine is sealed and in powder form and i’m desperate to get back to normality so who cares. After packing up I frowned and whispered into K’s ear “that is supposed to be for the street children” as he handed the doorman a hefty tip. We got back to Amritsar Junction, and boarded the train, I don’t know the name of it but on the ticket it said PTK DLI EXP.

I had missed so much, Amritsar was two visits to the Golden Temple, peering into the Martyr’s well at Jallianwalla Bagh (the site of the 1919 massacre) and paying 500 rupee for 2 Snapples in a western style cafe. (Tip: If something isn’t on the menu and is displayed in a place your eye is bound to wander then beware, they’ll rip you off bigtime). Oh well, I did have the Punjabi countryside as a consolation as we headed through, and on our way, to Delhi. Every now and then I noticed little blue war planes had landed on the roofs of houses only to realise they were water storage units. I did see people and tractors and the flat landscapes, everything I had imagined. Sitting across from us was an older, fed up looking man in disheveled clothes, a teenager in a light blue turban( who made sure we noticed his mobile telephone), and a moody looking man in khaki who was clutching onto his briefcase and looking down at people through his thick lensed glasses. As the train raced along K asked:

“So, which religion are you all?”

I just wanted to be swallowed up right there and then. I don’t know if this is an insulting question in India, the disheveled man turned out to be Hindu, the teenager Sikh and old Mr Grumpy Hindu. After answering . . . . . silence returned. We decided to play cards and some people giggled when they noticed I was cheating. Old Mr Grumpy got off somewhere near Ludhiana and I just thought “Thank You Lord!” We travelled on through the afternoon and then something truly astonishing happened. We could hear drums, the people sitting near us seemed to roll up their eyes thinking “Oh no, not this” but we turned into two little meerkats, our heads popping up over the chairs and scanning the carriage trying to see who was making the commotion. It was on my wishlist, The Nats!!! The little girl was fabulous, about four years old, she danced along the aisle of the carriage, her face painted red, clownlike. She was doing a little dance, putting one hand on her hip, the other behind her head and all I could think of was Betty Boop and the caricature of Mae West “Come up and see me sometime”. She tried to do an acrobatic stunt only get stuck in a metal hoop, and then she danced along the carriage. I think everyone had noticed our enthusiasm as they all began to laugh too and enjoy the moment. We took some photos of her and as she moved on I thought about her, wishing that one day she will find some sort of happiness in this super country.

We pulled into Old Delhi train station. I’m aware that I’m feeling better but don’t want to push my health to the limit. We walked towards the prepaid rickshaws, a tout told us the booth where you pay for the rickshaw was closed but we could already see the man who works there writing out the “paid” vouchers for the people in line. We handed our voucher to one of the traffic police and he told us to follow. We followed him onto Mukherjee Marg where he waved down an empty rickshaw. The driver obviously didn’t want to take us if it was prepaid but the traffic officer told him he had no choice. So, we stepped into the rickshaw-from-hell. I could see him fuming in the mirror as he drove in his rage, like a mad man, at one point we hit the back of a bus, I was waving my finger in the air and yelling to him:

“Slow down!! You know what you are? You know? You are an an idiot, an I.D.I.O.T, thats what you are!”.

This made him laugh and he slowed down. We got back to Pahar Ganj and headed to the hotel in the alley. The men working reception look pleased to see us and asked where we had been this time. They’ve gave us an upgrade, same price but with a view onto Main Bazaar. I feel really glad to be back in Delhi. It’s as hectic as London and New York, hmmm, thinking about it I would say that Delhi is WAY MORE HECTIC than London and New York COMBINED, the energy is out-of-this-world and I feel at home.

We’ve just chilled out on the roof top restaurant all evening, the Delhi skyline, the night every now and then lit up by a firework signalling that Diwali is imminent. Evenings in Delhi are the best, just when the city and people have cooled down but still as manic as the afternoons. We have decided to stay here for the remainer of our vacation and explore everything this city has to offer.

I’m figuring out that what makes India so unique and memorable are the people, sure the monuments are impressive in their own super-iconic ways but they are just a backdrop to what is really going on.

James has made light of the fact that I am a kind of “super gora” wherever I go in India. It sure helped us crash that wedding. But it also helps me in another way — after I get a giggling, self-conscious look from someone, they will almost always stay posed long enough for me to take a picture. In this case, there were four of them.

LAW OF QUEUE: If you change queues, the one you have left will start to move faster than the one you are in now.

LAW OF TELEPHONE: When you dial a wrong number, you never get an engaged Tone.

LAW OF MECHANICAL REPAIR: After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch.

LAW OF THE WORKSHOP: Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

LAW OF THE ALIBI: If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat tire.

BATH THEOREM: When the body is immersed in water, the telephone rings.

LAW OF ENCOUNTERS: The probability of meeting someone you know increases when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with.

LAW OF THE RESULT: When you try to prove to someone that a machine won’t work, it will!

LAW OF BIOMECHANICS: The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

THEATER RULE: People with the seats at the furthest from the aisle arrive last.

LAW OF COFFEE: As soon as you sit down for a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

Bamboozle: To take in by elaborate methods of deceit; hoodwink.

Another day in Delhi. K decided to wear one of the Indian tunics he bought in Vrindavan, funny, just by changing your clothes it can change how you are perceived. Instead of trying to sell us trinkets and egg whisks (which they reckon are head massagers) they were offering K narcotics “Hey man, nice clothes, nice hair, my name’s Baba, you want some hash?” K kind of glanced at me with a naughty expression and I laughed and promised we’ll meet up with Baba when we come back to Delhi. Somehow, after losing it on Chelmsford Road Delhi doesn’t get to me anymore, kind of like I have an invisible de-stress bubble to keep out the noise. I thought “huh, I kind of like being here” as we stepped out infront of a truck making it screech to a halt and I knew we have arrived, we are Delhiites at last.

We got to New Delhi train station with a hour to spare and thought “uhm, what should we do to pass the time?”, looking into each others eyes and reading each others minds we laughed and pretended to look lost, I pointed to the left, K pointed to the right and sure enough within a flash we were approached by a scammer.

“Hello, you can’t go into the station, i’m an officer, please show me your tickets!” the smartly dressed man said

“We are going to the tourist reservation to buy one” I said wide eyed trying to be bambi.

He led us to an abandoned part of the station and began filling out a white form, while signing a name onto it he said

“Take this across the road to the travel agents, they can help you”. He handed K the white form and K began ripping it up, the scammer looked confused, K said:

“You know, you are a liar!”.
His face dropped and he was beginning to get mad “No, i’m not the liar, you are!”
K said “No you are, you are the liar!” even more adamant, I began to giggle as this ‘you are, no you are’ game went on and then we walked away.

We bought an English copy of “The Hindustan Times” from an old paper seller sitting on the ground. He got excited and waved some men over, he was pointing to us and telling the men in English “these are my children, my children!!”, he looked like he wanted to stand up and kiss our foreheads. I didn’t understand why he would say this and thought he was either drunk or just very proud that we were interested in Indian current affairs.

We went back, into the main hall of the train station, a guard with a machine gun tried to stop us going any further. I knew he most probably wanted a bribe so I just noticed a police man and made sure the police officer could see that I thought he was my knight in shining armour. He waved the machine gun wielding guard aside and told us the platform number for the suburban train to Nizamuddin where the Golden Temple Express would be waiting. Indian train stations are kind of insane, the digital platform sign said the correct time but the wrong train while a suburban train was waiting on the tracks. Someone told us this was the correct platform for Amritsar but it turned out to be totally wrong.

Stepping onto the correct train I realised the man who sold us the tickets had never asked us what sort of carriage or class we wanted. The carriage was beat up with bars on the windows, we were sitting across from an elderly Punjabi man, his wife, their daughter and her baby, a little girl with black ruffled hair. I noticed they had drawn a ‘C’ sign on the little girls forehead with black ink, a dot in the middle, this fascinated me but I didn’t want them to ask why incase it caused some sort of insult. The train pulled out of Delhi, while travelling through the northern suburbs I became a voyeur, peering into the tiny houses, lit either by oil lamps or candles, women cooking over little stoves “Ah this is India I thought” and I loved it. The elderly man in the white turban spoke:

“Amritsar, you going Amritsar?”
We said “Yes, for a few days”
“Golden Temple, free place to sleep, free transport” he said proudly
“The Golden Temple is beautiful” I said smiling to his wife and showing them the photo which is in the Rough Guide.

As the journey progressed he told us the train had travelled from Mumbai and that they were going to see their family in the Punjab. I began to tell them all I knew about Sikhism, “Satnam WareHe Guru ji” I said and they all smiled and laughed and said “Satnam WareHe Guru” back. I told them my Indian friends back home had nicknamed me “Krata”, the Punjabi word for sleep as I spent alot of time doing this. Later we discussed Operation Blue Star, the elderly man glancing to the floor, his eyes changing into distant dark pools, said “Yes, I remember, I was in Amritsar in 1984″. I loved this moment and thought of my grandparents and all of the times they had told me about the war in Europe. The Punjabi family offered us some food, they gave us orange flavoured cookies which I found highly addictive. Later I managed to get onto the top bunk, wrapped the passports and money around me and tried to sleep. We travelled on through the night, I woke up and looked down into the carriage at one point, the police were talking to K, he had been caught smoking at the door of the carriage and they wanted 200 rupee. K talked his way out of it and seemed to become friends with one of them. “My home, Europe no good, people not happy” I could hear K say in simplied English as I fell asleep.

I woke up again in the night, I didn’t know how late it was, I was feeling bad, really bad and almost fell onto the floor while trying to get down from the bunk. I noticed the group of Spanish girls in the adjoining compartment had wrapped themselves in mosquito nets and didn’t know if they were being ridiculous in their paranoia or knew something we didn’t. I got to the toilet looking around in confusion, the railway company never cleans the toilets and I mean NEVER. I almost burst out crying as the train jolted and I fell INTO the toilet, this was bad, my legs and bottom covered in other peoples urine and got knows what else. There was no water coming out of the taps so all I could do was pull up my pyjamas, wake K up and watch him laugh at me as I explained what had happened. We walked back to the toilet with a bottle of water and tissues and a pair of clean trousers and K helped clean me up, he threw my pyjamas out of a window before we snuggled down and tried to sleep.

It was around 7am and we were pulling into Amritsar, I could see people beside the rail tracks, squatting out in the open with bottles of water to clean themselves. I felt like a zombie, we wandered out of the train station and said goodbye to the Punjabi family. We walked, then they came, the pack of cycle rickshaw drivers:

“Golden Temple, 50 rupee” they were saying. We told them we didn’t want to go there.
Another one said “Golden Temple, 100 rupee” K was telling them to shut up and leave us alone. After one man had asked us if we wanted to go to the Golden Temple we said “No” and then the driver standing RIGHT BESIDE HIM who was listening would then ask if we wanted to go to the Golden Temple with him. When you are tired and in this situation you have 3 options, (1) laugh, (2) cry, (3) lose it.

We wandered along the main road away from the Amritsar Junction and tried 5 hotels. We couldn’t find a room, they were all full. I was feeling even more wrecked as we stumbled along, every now and then telling rickshaw drivers to get out of our face, tired and hungry without a clue where we were going. Eventually we saw a luxury hotel and thought “Screw it, lets stay here”. We checked in, it must have been about 10am, all I wanted to do was shower and sleep. Some television channels were playing Shabad Kirtans, live from the temple, so we let this music be our bedtime story as we nodded off in the oversized and very wonderful bed. I woke up just as it was getting dark, K was shaking me awake, I was burning up and freezing cold and very very confused, he looked worried. Not wanting to worry him anymore than he already was I told him I was okay and showered. Guru Nanak or God or Ganesha or Buddha must have answered our prayers as we found a western pizza place, the same chain whom i’m sure has tried to poison me in Delhi, I won’t name names. I had some tortilla and Bisleri as K went through two pizzas, pasta and lots of Mountain Dew.

We took a cycle rickshaw to the Golden Temple. I felt confused, as if things were taking longer to register in my mind. K held onto me to stop me falling out of the rickshaw, I noticed shops selling washing machines and wide screen televisions, the shops actually had glass doors! I realised we were in a very different part of India from Vrindavan, far more western, the people probably better off financially. A pack of teenage boys spotted us from the sidewalk and began shouting very excited as if they had spotted movie stars, they were all rushing over and I thought “Oh god, not now please”. K told the driver not to stop.

We got to the Golden Temple and after taking off our shoes and covering our heads we walked towards the Amrit Sarovar, the brilliance and christmas lights reflected in the water. I thought of the first moments of my own life, just when you begin to notice the evening news and the images I first saw of Amritsar, only it was 1984 and the complex had been burnt out and there had been tanks instead of tourists. I thought back to that age when I was small, realising at that age I never thought I would ever be there. We walked around, listening to the Kirtans, people were smiling. We headed towards the causeway and stood in line, watching the gigantic goldfish swim in the water of the Amrit Sarovar, the crowd moving forward only to be stopped by an old man in a turban who would every now and then pull the wooden bar back across, demanding that the crowd stop. As we reached the door of the Hari Mandir people were getting down and kissing the steps, it was very moving and I could feel a lump in my throat and tears, overwhelmed by the spirituality of it all. Inside we approached the Durbar Sahib and spotted Guru Granth Sahib and threw money infront of it. We went to the first floor, in awe of the animal and flower motifs and the chandelier and sat on the marble floor, listening to the hypnotic Kirtans and feeling safe, the way you feel safe when you are home, the outside world blocked out. Some Sikh boys, about the same age as K started talking to him, explaining the Hari Mandir and I just sat there enjoying the moment, proud within myself that I had been able to get K to change his views on religion.

I have always wanted to visit Amritsar, this is my first trip to India and for me it is just as essential as visiting the Taj Mahal. Ironically and typically, nothing ever works out the way you plan. Instead of wandering around Amritsar, visiting Wagah and exploring little villages in the Punjab countryside I have been very ill in the hotel. I don’t know if there was something wrong with the pizza in Delhi, maybe falling into the toilet incident, or maybe I have malaria, I just don’t know. We went out again in the middle of the afternoon, this time it was worse. Normally I like the smell of the street food but this time it is making me want to vomit, the exhaust fumes are even worse, and the heat, I feel like I haven’t been able to process things within my mind as I could before. I’m terrified that I may have malaria and all I can do is thank God that i’m staying in this hotel in relative luxury, if this had happened in Pahar Ganj then i’d have just wanted to die. K has been going out and exploring himself and bringing back food and water for me. I feel really sad that i’m missing Amritsar and we have decided to not go into Himachal Pradesh but to go back to Delhi when I have more strength, I want to be nearer to the Embassy incase this illness turns serious.

Anyone from SOCH group going to Amritsar is a big deal. You would ask why is it a big deal anyway? Trust me, the kind of shopping that can be done there, it cannot be done anywhere. Oh so what can we be crazy about? Guru has made us crazy about Baani and Baana. I got myself some Taksali Sundar Gutka Sahib and Blue-Black turbans. The Gutka Sahib has very beautiful classic print. And tomorrow I will be wearing the Black turban, and make it a habit, just the way my dad does. With these thoughts in mind, I archived the ‘Amritsar Items’ mail from my inbox (that’s how I keep my TO-DO list!) and I guess it is also time to sleep!

This blog post finds us in perhaps the wildest state in India: Punjab.

I fully expected us to end up in the Punjab, for the simple reason that our friend Danish is Punjabi. In Delhi, we would eat our food surrounded by young turbaned Sikhs, friends of Danish’s, who would try to explain to us how Punjabi food is completely different. We would walk past gurudwhalas (Sikh temples), where Punjabi warriors carrying swords and spears would file by in procession, dressed in both the saffron colors (which denote peace) or royal blue (which denotes war). Here in the Punjab, we have learned the phrase “Teyaar-Bar-Teyaar”, which describes the Sikh warrior’s constant state of preparedness for battle.

Punjabis can best be described as the Texans of India. They think India is great, but their Punjabi pride is the defining aspect of their identity. As our friend Manbhir tried to explain, “you cannot describe it; you can only experience it. If you’re lucky enough to be born Punjabi.”

Yesterday we had the incredible privilege of visiting Amritsar, the holiest site in all of Sikhdom (Danish’s father described it as a Sikh Jerusalem). There, we saw the Golden Temple which houses the Guru
Granth Sahib, the holy book of the Sikh religion. It is the most magnificent single book I have ever seen, and by far the largest.

We partook in all the wonders of the Golden Temple; we washed our hands and feet in the holy waters that are meant to heal the sick. We ate at the Communal Kitchen where all eat the same meal together, representative of Sikh’s egalitarian philosophy and humankind’s inherent unity. We bought (and are currently wearing) kadda, the Sikh bracelets which symbolize being ‘handcuffed to G-d’, as our friend Mahesh put it.

Afterwards, we visited the site of the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre. In 1919, British soldiers opened fire on a crowd of unarmed Sikhs, killing over a thousand protesters. The soldiers stopped firing only when they ran out of bullets. The resulting anger and shock fueled the burgeoning India independence movement.

In the Punjab, Elliot’s celebrity status has become more pronounced. People continue to point at him and shout “Gora!”. Others have asked to have their pictures taken with him. I receive less attention; our Punjabi friends believe that this is because I can pass for Indian, or at least half-Indian. Those of you who know my idiosyncracies will not be surprised that I took this as an undeserved compliment. However, I suspect that Elliot’s appeal comes from the fact that he is a super-gora, with his red hair and pale complexion. Beside him, I’m just some white kid.

We have seen several other goras in the Punjab, but the feeling of comradery I expected to appear between us strangers in a strange land has not  occurred. I suspect that it is because so many people come here for such different regions. We have seen many goras that, Danish explained, are here to take the shortcut to enlightenment: that is to say, Indian holy places coupled with mind-altering substances. Others have taken different paths; we passed several gora Sikhs, dressed all in white. I would have loved to sit down with them and listen to why they made such a radical life decision, to give themselves so fully to a religion that certainly had little to do with their original spiritual background. But the atmosphere of the Golden Temple, I felt, discouraged such intrusion into others’ private contemplation.

More posts are forthcoming regarding the generous Tiwana family. On the 4^th, we will be in Bombay. Until then,

Jo bole so nihal!

Sat Sri Akal!

-James and Elliot