Truly Golden

Santanu Chakraborty

Photographs: Author
Category: Featured Travel
Date of Publication: Jun 21 , 2011

Our destination was the "Golden Temple", Amritsar. We were at Thapar University, Patiala. In order to reach there as early as possible, we started at 3:30am, got into a bus, remained standing for more or less half of the 5 hour journey and got down at Amritsar bus terminus around 9:00 am. The Golden Temple is 10min walking distance from the terminus and "Jalianwala Bagh" was right on the way. So we decided to have a visit there. A well-decorated Bagh/garden which had a monument and a torch which was on 24X7 in the memoir of the ones who had to give up their lives just for nothing! Our eyes were wet and our hearts became sad as we saw the bullet marks on the walls and the "KUAN". It brought more hatred towards the British. But the hatred soon changed into anger and disgust when we looked around. This place has become only a tourist destination where people from all around India and abroad come and take photographs showing as many teeth as possible! And also couples were enchanting each-other in the Bagh. I don't know whom we hated more when we came out- the British or these Indians!

Pretty soon, Golden Temple entrance was on our sight. We tied small cloths on our head as we were entering a Gurdwara. All our feet were washed as we crossed the small man-made stream in front of the stairs. And when we climbed up the stairs, it was an outstanding scene in front of our eyes. It was the "Golden Temple" standing just in front of our eyes with the holy lake surrounding the place. We were flown to some other state of beauty by this divine sight and it was the push from the visitors standing behind that made us come back to reality. The atmosphere was outstandingly divine and so infectious that even me, who is no-way a temple-goer, was eager to stand in the huge queue of people entering the main Gurdwara. We entered the gurdwara, had the blessings, came out and touched the holy water and the holy fishes(some were as big as 3ft). It was more or less lunch time and we had the free lunch served there. And I don't know if the food was really tasty or not, but it tasted wonderful to mus. Then we roamed around and got to the place where people were serving, for free. It was a mixture of true devotees without any of wealth or class or caste. And the sound coming out when the washed dishes were put into trolleys made us stand there in amazement. yes, the generosity of Indians truly stunned us. Now we were unable to figure the thing that made an Indian- who can pose a laugh at a place of inhuman violence and brutality and then come here and serve people whole-heartily. You can never judge an Indian!!!