I arrived early in the morning at Amritsar on a sleeper train and headed directly to the Golden Temple, which provides accommodations to travelers for free. I was led to the foreigner's dorm which was just outside one of the gates to the Golden Temple. The accommodations first seemed rough and tumble. It's one large room with ten beds lined up adjacent to each other, three smaller rooms with four beds each and one shared bathroom with a faucet, bucket and sink which drains to the floor by your feet. But after a shower I realized it was efficient, clean and perfect. The dorm is mixed and if there is availability, you take a bed and put your stuff on it to claim it. I had breakfast with a stunning Israeli couple who were bunking next to me. I then headed off to meet up with the person who I shared my train compartment with the night before to see some of the minor sites.
In town, we saw the most ridiculous pompous creations you could imagine. These sites had one thing in common. They all took massive amounts of time, effort and material to produce something so very gauche.
The first was the Mata temple, made with glass mosaic and crudely drawn and painted murals. You enter through and a small anus-like tunnel and are finally passed out through the mouth after wading through ankle deep water.
The second site was the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Panorama which was a memorial built to the last Punjabi King. You start with paintings in massive gilt frames depicting the glorious achievements of the king with stories extoling his many virtues. The next room is a series of vignettes bringing the rajas great deeds into vivid 3 dimensional view. It all culminates in the top floor which has a grandiose semicircular battle scene with lifesize fiberglass figures. The room is filled with a recording playing the sounds of battle. On the open end of the semicircle is a lifesize fiberglass recreation painting by a Hungarian artist, comissioned by the raja, of a scene in the bazar with his court in attendance. They threw in a slain bengal tiger to fix what, they felt, the original artist somehow omitted.
The final stop in our absurdity tour was the India-Pakistan border. They put on a pageant on both sides of the border with high stepping and peacock posturing as they open the gates, lower flags then close them again. People in the hundreds turned out for this daily event, even on this weekday. By the time we got there the good seats were all taken but then I noticed that all the white people were off in one section up front. They allow foreigners a part of the VIP section so I got a great view. Gotta love that, I get Indian prices to the monuments and foreign seating and accommodations. Best of both worlds, I thought, until I experienced Indian-on-Indian racism as my dark skin conflicted with my foreign passport and they didn't know whether to allow me to sit with my white friend or in the Indian VIP section. The event felt more like a soccer match than a changing of the guards. People were hooting and hollering, there was music from Hindi movies blaring over the speakers and the MC was cheer leading.
To counterpoint the extravaganzas I witnessed, the Golden Temple is sublime and completely genuine. More on that tomorrow.
In town, we saw the most ridiculous pompous creations you could imagine. These sites had one thing in common. They all took massive amounts of time, effort and material to produce something so very gauche.
The first was the Mata temple, made with glass mosaic and crudely drawn and painted murals. You enter through and a small anus-like tunnel and are finally passed out through the mouth after wading through ankle deep water.
The second site was the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Panorama which was a memorial built to the last Punjabi King. You start with paintings in massive gilt frames depicting the glorious achievements of the king with stories extoling his many virtues. The next room is a series of vignettes bringing the rajas great deeds into vivid 3 dimensional view. It all culminates in the top floor which has a grandiose semicircular battle scene with lifesize fiberglass figures. The room is filled with a recording playing the sounds of battle. On the open end of the semicircle is a lifesize fiberglass recreation painting by a Hungarian artist, comissioned by the raja, of a scene in the bazar with his court in attendance. They threw in a slain bengal tiger to fix what, they felt, the original artist somehow omitted.
The final stop in our absurdity tour was the India-Pakistan border. They put on a pageant on both sides of the border with high stepping and peacock posturing as they open the gates, lower flags then close them again. People in the hundreds turned out for this daily event, even on this weekday. By the time we got there the good seats were all taken but then I noticed that all the white people were off in one section up front. They allow foreigners a part of the VIP section so I got a great view. Gotta love that, I get Indian prices to the monuments and foreign seating and accommodations. Best of both worlds, I thought, until I experienced Indian-on-Indian racism as my dark skin conflicted with my foreign passport and they didn't know whether to allow me to sit with my white friend or in the Indian VIP section. The event felt more like a soccer match than a changing of the guards. People were hooting and hollering, there was music from Hindi movies blaring over the speakers and the MC was cheer leading.
To counterpoint the extravaganzas I witnessed, the Golden Temple is sublime and completely genuine. More on that tomorrow.
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