Golden Temple, Amritsar
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The incandescent bulbs hang low at the Golden Temple. Amritsar.
(click on photos to go to gallery)
The first time I visited The Golden temple at Amritsar was in 1999. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had been arrested after General Musharraf’s blood-less coup. His family was from Jatti Umra- a small dusty village close to Amritsar. They lived in this village until the Partition. His father, Mian Mohammed Sharif was a popular and much loved man in the village here. So when Sharif junior was arrested by Musharraf, there were special Gurudwara prayers for him in this Indian village. The Sharief’s family’s bungalow is incidentally the village Gurudwara till today. I was sent to this village to talk to the villager elders who knew the Sharief family.
The Golden Temple or Harmandir Sahib as the Akal Takth now insist we all should call it, was then for me, just a side show. But I was impressed. It was peaceful and gave even a non-believer like myself a sense of something divine. There is no one to heckle you here unlike in mosques and temples. The Lonely Planet mentions this in the first sentence `no one asks for any money at the Golden Temple’. The hymes from the Guru Granth Sahib are sung soulfully on loudspeaker throughout the day. I only wish they would maybe reduce the volume a bit.
Two Sikh men at the Golden temple. The sevadar and the regular devotee.
However a lesser known and a very interesting fact about The Golden Temple is that it receives more visitors than even The Taj Mahal -making it the most visited Monument in India. Maybe this has changed over the years and if anyone has the latest statistics kindly do share.
The scars of the 1984 `Operation Bluestar’ remain vivid. A small boy , the son of one of the hymn singers told me how he and his family revere Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale as a `saint’ and how Indira Gandhi was evil. He then asked me to shoot his picture. I took a shot but the boy was not convinced. “Chingari Zaye tu Chamki Nahi’– (The spark sort of thing did not shine) he said insisting that I shoot again.
I found the arthritic fingers of this old man fascinating. They seemed to resemble the holy verses inscribed on the marble slabs where he placed his head.
On my third visit in 2009 I focused on the Golden Temple’s kitchen. I found the idea of community kitchen fascinating. Pilgrims volunteer to participate in making food, wash utensils and serve strangers to gain karma and goodwill. This happens 24 hours a day. You can pick up the steel plate at the entrance and sit in the huge halls and wait for men who come with buckets and pour copious amounts of food in your plate.
The construction of the temple was begun by fifth Guru Arjan Dev in the 16th century. It houses the original Guru Granth Sahib.