Trip to the Golden Temple, Amritsar by a non Sikh. Review on Amritsar

For quite some time we had been thinking of visiting this pious place to pay our obeisance for more than one reason. Not only this is one place in India visited every year by more number of foreign tourists than Agra, as I was told, but also because of being a citizen of this country we have the privilege to perform pilgrimage to the most revered places of many faiths without much hassles.

I had got my hotel booking done over phone with the very first hotel (Veenus International) that I talked to after getting their phone number from their INTERNET site. It is always better to talk to hotels directly then through travel agents or tour operators as tariffs charged is less in the former case.

Our train to Amritsar left New Delhi at 13:35 Hrs and got us there at 21:30 Hrs. In the last week of October, the weather was pleasant and one does not need to carry even light woolens.

As promised over phone, the hotel had arranged a fairly cheap taxi pick-up for us. The hotel was very near to the railway station and the room was decent enough for a budget hotel (Super deluxe D/B room- Rs.700/-). There was no restaurant with the hotel but they served dinner from their kitchen in our room. The food was delicious and reasonably priced.

Next day we went to Sri Harmandir Sahib, also known as Sri Darbar Sahib or Golden Temple, (golden coating on outside), which is about 2 kms from the railway station. It is named after Hari(God) the temple of God. Unlike other places of worship, here one takes few steps down the ground level and not few steps above the ground level to go to the temple structure and also the temple premise has entrance and exit on all the four sides.

The main temple is at the centre of the lake (sarovar). The approach to the temple is from the west (Akal Takht) side of the sarovar. One is supposed to keep his head covered (simply by tying a handkerchief) on entering the temple premise and move in a clockwise direction to reach to the approach. The profusion of white on all sides and flooring, clear view of the sky above and water below gave a feeling of peace instantly. Maintaining cleanliness of the place in spite of large number of visitors is commendable which appeared to be on account of involvement of volunteers in this act apart from efficient management and lack of earth, lawn or trees inside the temple premise.  Lack of knowledge of Punjabi, the language spoken and Gurmukhi, the script used there, did not pose much of a hindrance to be a part of the devotees in the procession. Holy Guru Granth Sahib is worshipped and occupies the highest place in the main temple. Singing from the Guru Granth Sahib on generally classical Hindustani Raag based music with bare minimum musical instruments was being played through speakers and was really very soothing. One should keep at least two hours in his schedule for visiting here.

From the Golden temple, at a walking distance, stands as a live testimony, not in prominence, the entrance to the Jallianwala Bagh, one of the most important sites of pilgrimage of the nation’s freedom fight.

It was here where General Dyer under the then Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab Michael O’ Dwyer, commanded his soldiers to open fire on a peaceful, unarmed gathering of men, women and children without giving them the opportunity to escape, killing harmless people with bullets and also by stampede which happened as a result of jumping into a well in order to save life. This was in the pretext of legislation by British government placing restriction on freedom of assembly following passing of the Rowlatt act which vested the Viceroy's government with extraordinary powers to quell sedition.

A walk down the garden, a peep into the well, a gaze over the walls bearing bullet marks and a look in the small museum where Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Thakur’s letter to return his Knighthood as a protest is kept, was sufficient to remind about the atrocity of worst kind by the British rule.

One hour is sufficient to cover this.

Later in the day we set out for Atari (last Indian village on Indo-Pakistan border) – Wagah borer in an auto-rickshaw. This place is about 30 Kms from Amritsar. We were charged Rs.550/- for the rickshaw which we kept for the whole day. We reached up to the point beyond which vehicles without special permission are not allowed, around 4:00PM. From there, a walk of around half a kilometer took us to the Indian gate. One is not permitted to carry anything other than cell phone and camera (not even camera case, lady’s purse) here. From here to the main border gate, there is a stadium on one side of the road with a capacity to accommodate at least 2000 people to facilitate viewing of the joint show by BSF and Pakistan Rangers. The National Flag downing ceremony of both the countries was conducted in a dramatic manner with lot of fan fare in the midst of nationalistic slogans. At times I wondered if we were celebrating division. Instead of feeling proud we came back with a heavy heart.

We caught the next day’s train to Delhi at 15:10 Hrs. but not before paying another visit to Sri Harmandir Sahib and reached Delhi around 22:30 Hrs. fully satiated.