I woke up at 5:15 to meet David for breakfast before he had to go to the train station, but it turns out all they’re serving is chai (not that you can tell based on the noise level—they’re still banging away on those dishes like an Indian version of Stomp). After he left I went back to bed for about 3 hours, enjoying the warmth too much to get up. When I do finally drag myself out of bed, I spend a few hours journaling and organizing my pack so I don’t even really leave the dorm until 11 or so. The free bus to the station is going to leave soon, so I grab a window seat next to a very quiet, but curious, woman. When I unzip my bag she pulls it over with typical Indian regard for personal space and looks in. “Camera!” she says. I smile and agree. When I pull it out to take a photo out the window she pulls my hands close so she can inspect it more carefully. I guess her grunt is approval of the photo I took. Also on the way to the station: a billboard advertising for the Mr. Singh competition. That’s right, it’s a Sikh pageant for men! The photos are of a couple of pissed-off men in turbans and wife beaters with giant black beards and tufts of chest hair poking out; one other guy is in full sardar dress with a sword. I would go to that even if it were all in Hindi—it looks awesome!
We all push and heave our way out of the bus and I start walking towards the Mata Temple (which I think means Mother Temple). And now we get to another one of my favorite things about India: this is the first time I have seen a temple modeled after a funhouse. You walk up and down ramps, crawl into a “cave” (representing a divine mouth), wade through water, ring the bells, admire the murals of colored glass, pat the silver lion below the gold flag with a swastika on it… I can absolutely see this rolling into the county fair back home. As I walk past an altar, a priest calls me over and puts a large necklace of flowers over my head as a blessing and gives me a handful of raw sugar crystals to eat. So much for losing weight in India. This is a hoot.
Ram Bagh is entirely uninteresting. A dirty park with very little greenery to speak of, I leave after about ten minutes and catch a cycle rickshaw to Sri Durgiana temple, my last stop before I return to the Golden Temple complex. It’s billed as the Hindu version of the Golden Temple, but I would describe it as more of a knock-off: it’s smaller, dirtier, and poorly constructed. I’m sure my guide books are telling me the best of Amritsar, but they also manage to make these places sound about 10 times more exciting than they actually are. All right, I give up. I’m going back to the complex to see one last sight before taking an afternoon nap and getting dinner before my train. Jallianwhala Bagh is a park and memorial dedicated to the hundreds of Indians killed by British troops in the 1930s after they had gathered to peacefully demonstrate for independence. It is here that I start to get emotional again as I think about the injustice of the situation. Thousands of scared Indians were trapped in an empty space between buildings with only a couple narrow alleys to use as exits with soldiers firing thousands of rounds from the walls above them. Several jumped into the well and drowned trying to escape the gunfire. This is the main event that inspired Gandhi to start his campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience. I'm happy to see the memorial remains well-maintained and is being visited by dozens of Indians.
I kill a few hours eating dinner, getting online, backing up my photos onto my hard drive and walking through the temple complex one last time (still on the look-out for the person who stole my shoes, too). And suddenly it's time to leave Amritsar. The last two days have absolutely flown by and I wish I'd had more time not only in this peaceful city, but with the new friends that I've made. Oh, well, they'll be on Facebook.
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