Amritsar and the Golden Temple

October 2015

The Golden Temple is ... beautiful, breath-taking and deeply inspiring.  To Sikhs it’s known as the Harmandir Sahib, or ‘abode of God’, and is the most important shrine in the Sikh religion.  Over 150,000 people come here every day – most to worship, and many to volunteer their services, especially in the kitchen, but many, like me, just to see it and experience it.  To do that, we made a special trip to Amritsar, in northwestern India, not far from the border with Pakistan.  The town of Amritsar didn’t hold much of interest for us, although the food stalls at the night market served up some terrific food.

 

Doug with a temple guard

We headed to the temple in the morning, walking towards the main entrance, along with hundreds of others, many of them dressed in their finest clothes, women in colourful salwar kameez, men more casually dressed in shirts and slacks. Young boys with their hair slicked down, girls with their hair in tight braids, beribboned and barretted.  I had put on a dress, and covered my head with a light scarf – both women and men are required to cover their heads in the temple.  Everyone was excited.  For many families, their visit to the temple might be a first; they might have traveled some distance to get here, and they might have a special reason for wanting or needing to attend.  We, on the other hand, were just curious tourists, but it was easy to get caught up in the excitement of the crowd.

 

We spent all day at the temple, first walking around the entire site, which is large.  It’s a square of bright white buildings around a large pool.  The Golden Temple is clearly the most important of the buildings, and gets its name from the gold leaf that was used to cover the sanctum when it was rebuilt in 1809.  The temple’s been the site of numerous conflicts over the years, most notably in 1984, when Indira Gandhi sent the Indian army in to crush a rebellion.  Over a thousand people – civilians and soldiers – died during what was known as ‘Operation Blue Star’.  And parts of the temple complex were destroyed or damaged and had to be rebuilt, as so many of them had been, over the years.  All was quiet and peaceful when we were there, and it was difficult to even imagine this serene place as the site of bloody battles.

 

One of the most interesting places in the temple complex is the langar – a massive kitchen – where thousands and thousands of people are fed, every day, for free.  Anyone and everyone is welcome to partake, not just Sikhs.  The temple too welcomes those of all religions.  This welcoming and generosity of spirit is a hallmark of the Sikh faith.  The meals are strictly vegetarian, and are cooked in huge vats, some more than six feet in diameter, by a team of ‘chefs’ with very large and long utensils.  

 

The dining hall is equally huge – much bigger than a school gymnasium.  Everyone was seated on the floor, in relatively tidy rows, their metal plates of food before them.  Servers walked up and down the aisles ladling out more food – dahl, rice, vegetable curries – from buckets they carried in from the kitchen.  When they’d finished their meal, the now sated people came out of the hall with their empty plates, and handed them to a person stationed right at the door.  

The plates were then passed from hand to hand down a long line of volunteers to the dish washers.  And from them handed to another line of people who placed them on huge  stainless steel racks to dry.  

 

Many people come to the temple to volunteer in the kitchen, primarily as servers, dish washers and chapati makers.  I lingered by the door of a somewhat dark and smoke-filled room where a group of women, seated on the floor, were making chapatis.  They invited me in and showed me how to do it.  Fortunately, having been a bread maker for much of my life, the rolling and kneading came easily.  The women were suitably impressed.  After making a few chapatis I got up to take my leave, thinking as I did so that I could stay here, or somewhere like here, and do this, get involved with a group like these lovely women, doing something to be of service to others.  There is something deeply satisfying about serving.  But not here, and not now.  Instead I took with me a memory – a photo of me with two of the women – the two who had sat beside me and coached me in the art of chapati making.  

 

As we continued our stroll around the temple, heading now towards the exit, we saw an older woman carrying a large cement slab on her head.  Was she a paid worker, or a volunteer?  My guess is that she was a volunteer, and that she chose this particular task for a reason.  But what?

Amazingly, despite the crowds and all of the activity in the temple area, there are still places for quiet prayer or contemplation.

For more information about the Golden Temple go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Temple