Border Madness in Amritsar
Trip Start
Jun 14, 2008
1
96
Trip End
Jun 20, 2009
Amritsar, Punjab, India
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
There is loud music as we enter the shaded entrance to the temple. Tourists and pilgrims are queuing alike. There is something very menacing about the way the Sikhs look, I'm not sure if its the close proximity of the edge of their turban to their eyebrows, or the portrayal of the villain in the Bond film Octopussy by a Sikh that makes me think this!!
People are bathing in the blue waters around the temple. Inside it's gold and gaudy, with a huge chandelier hanging from the high ceiling...a pimp's harem springs to mind! Veiled and turbaned men and women crowd around the boxed off centre where musicians are playing weird and wonderful instruments. We are shuffled through quickly bodies pressed up against each other.
Around the outside of the temple holy foreheads touch the scorching marble to give praise and thanks...I try to circumnavigate quickly on my atheist toes, seeking what little shade there is. The complex surrounding the temple is impressive also...white onion bulbs and tall minarets frame the gold temple, marble arches run at right angles. On the walls, carvings of names of martyrs and the dead fill the spaces.
The dining hall full of tin plates and people in lotus position, shoveling the dhal bhat mixture into their mouths. No one, I think, must go hungry in Amristar. Despite the 25 year anniversary of Operation Blue Star falling that day there is no trouble...though we read of a march in the paper the next day.
The museum depicting the events of that day in 1984 is pretty disappointing.
Outside we select a trust worthy looking Sikh driver for return trip to the border of Pakistan, a fair price of 350 rupees. It's hot (44 degrees, how we have acclimatized) even as the late afternoon ebbs away. We are on our way to see the in famous border ceremony.
When we arrive we are escorted to the "VIP" section by soldiers with large guns. We are I notice, the first line of defence should there be an attack from the other side of the border. We crouch beside sand bags on concrete steps.
I am amazed at the carnival atmosphere. There are stalls everywhere frying up pakoras and popcorn, as if for a movie. It is a spectacle.
Kids wander with bottles of pop, Indian flags flutter for sale. This is as much a tourist attraction for the Indians as it is for the tourists, although I suspect we enjoy it for different reasons. They come from all over, part of a package tour. Saturday is most busy on the Pakistani side we discover, Sunday is the day that most locals from Amristar make the trek.
The contrast between the Indian and Pakistani sides are marked. Larger, more colourful crowds gather on the Indian side, in Pakistan they are austere and segregated by sex and all dressed in black or brown. Although India can hardly boast about its treatment of women, its sari clad ladies run to the dividing gates with the flags hoisted over their shoulder. You almost expect them to stick their tongues out and go "nah nah nah nah na!" before their about face.
The flag marathon continues on both sides for a time (men only of course on the Pakistan side). Then music volume increases on both sides, Indian side women start dancing with the kids in front of the tiered seats...I expect Shaha Khan to turn up!! It was like a scene from Slumdog Millionaire. This is India, in typically paradoxical fashion...at its best and worst. Best, the colour, the joie de vive, the laughter...the worst, the jingoistic and juvenile display of rubbing its neighbours nose in it...something which would be hilarious if they both didn't have serious terrorist threats, and nuclear weapons pointed at each other.
The soldiers look like cockerels squaring up to one another, the image is aided by their resplendent headpieces. Their marching is like a gay riverdance meets the Ministry of Silly Walks. hard to keep the laughter in. Shouts of "Pakistan" and "Hindustan" get louder and louder, some of the chants are so hard to make out. Emmet and I decided on "Hindustan in the house". The Pakistani music definitely has the edge though, bringing it almost to the point of crescendo, then letting it rip...it's almost like being at a very strange rave!!
Our VIP section by now is packed and we are at close quarters with the sweaty armpits and intruding elbows of our fellow travelers. Your body is public property in India and people think nothing of grabbing onto your arms and shoulders as they move through the crowd, poking your back or sticking their feet to rest under your bum. Mothers take pictures of me on their camera phones for their shy sons. I retaliate and fire off a few shots of my own.
At the end of the day we reflect on bizarreness of it all over a cool pitch of draft beer. Definitely one of the best days in India so far.
