Colour and shadow in Amritsar: 24 hours in the Sikh capital

Crossing the border from Himachal Pradesh into Punjab, the haze in the

sky increases to become brown-grey smog; shadowy bullock carts loom out of the murk and then fade away as a truck belching diesel takes its place. 

We are travelling to Amritsar on the weekend that smoke from the burning crop stubble in the Punjab has combined with vehicle emissions in Delhi to create an air pollution horror story in global media. Will the murk and gloom affect our view of the Golden Temple, we wonder? 

Five hours after leaving McLeod Ganj - our temporary hill town home where the smoke has obscured our views of the Dhauladar Range for the last two weeks - the Suzuki Swift taxi drops us in a huge multi-storey car park around lunchtime. Driver Anu herds us down to ground level, and points us off into the light traffic with vague instructions about finding our way through Amritsar’s heritage pedestrian precinct.

The colour of the city hits us, bright against the dun pewter sky: deep red sandstone pavers and colonial buildings; brilliant citrus sequinned fabric lengths flow down the front and side displays of shops and onto the women around us; primary coloured turbans bob on the heads of grave bearded gentlemen; polished brass pots on the bikes delivering milk to the dhabas (breakfast and lunch shops). 

But we do not stay long: even though we have just spent a whole morning in the car, we jump back into the Swift after a late lunch and head north-west - we have a date with the border! Just 30 km or so from Amritsar, the old Grand Trunk Road - famed by Kipling - makes one of very few road crossings from India into Pakistan at the village of Wagah. 

We are at here for the daily border ceremony (free, no reservations required) and it is ready to rock. By 5 pm (4.30 in winter) we are in the middle of an excited crowd in a massive concrete stadium, there's a women-only dance party free for all on the flat, and the MC is revving up the all-ready waving and shouting crowd in the stands. Barely 50 m and two ornate iron gates away through the gathering evening smog is the enemy: the Pakistan Border Force, supported by a much smaller and non-dancing crowd of what seems to be only men in white.

The border ceremony is 30 minutes of highly coordinated high-camp high-kicking marching and posturing mirrored by both sides (obviously jointly rehearsed) while the crowd hoots and fist pumps, and yells of “Jai Hind” are flung at the Pakistan side of the gate.

Pakistan - ‘Country of Light’ - burst into being as a result of the controversial partition of India in 1947, which tore the Punjab apart into two countries. This new large Muslim nation has been variously at war or in armed peace against India ever since, whether threatening nuclear Armageddon or much more seriously, full on war on the international cricket field. Two nations divided and linked by a common passion for a colonial era sport.

Arriving back in Amritsar City after dark, we head for the complex that houses the Golden Temple. The entrance requirements are specific and organised: leave all bags and shoes at free cloakrooms (provided), cover your head with a scrap of bright sari scarf (provided), wash your feet as you enter (shallow wading pools like the old British chlorine foot baths); then step up and then down through a white marble archway to see the wonder of the Golden Temple shimmering on the vast pool of water at the heart of the complex.

Mesmerised by the beauty of the floating gleaming ornate domed cube, we pace round the marbled square open air cloister surrounding the pool, queue along the golden pontoon walkway and enter the shining jewel temple. The crowd in the few metres wide gilded and painted central chamber is crammed around a group of elders filling the air with singing - the words of the Granth Sahib, the scripture of the Sikhs are sung 24 hours a day. 

Following the crush we ooze upstairs to a gallery and pick our way through meditators to the roof. Above us is the dark night - the stars are lost in the shadowy pollution - but our faces reflect floodlit gold leaf and white marble.

Back in the main gurdwara (temple complex), we head to the community dining room to try out the langar; each Sikh temple offers free vegetarian food to all-comers. Everyone sits on the floor as equals and is doled out a good meal of dhal, rice, naan and sweet rice pudding on a metal thali plate. The gurdwara at Amritsar claims to feed 30,000 people a day. (Be warned though, 3 out of 4 of us came down with giardia within 48 hours.)

Next morning, we walk round to Jallianwallah Bagh - the memorial park dedicated to one of the most shameful episodes in British colonial history. In 1915, British infantry under General Dyer fired live rounds - without warning - into a 1000s strong peaceful crowd that had picked this enclosed space for a protest meeting about British rule. Upwards of 1500 died that day, or in the hours afterwards since the British imposition of a curfew resulted in many of the wounded dying where they lay unattended that night.

This simple enclosed garden, about the size of a soccer ground, displays information and thoughtful commentary. Most affecting are the topiary statues that show the position of the troops and the many many bullet holes in the surrounding red ochre brick walls caused by Dyer’s men shooting into the backs of unarmed civilians trying to clamber over the walls away from violent death. 

Back to the Golden Temple gurdwara in daylight, we are grateful for the murky sky and smoke haze - the white marble pavers and walls and domes would be blinding on a bright day. There is ritual bathing in the pool, chanting processions and more music; devout Sikhs of all ages just rest  and absorb the experience of being in their holiest space. The colours of their clothes vibrate against the subdued paleness of the buildings.  

Spending time at the temple

Our final destination of our trip is the newly opened Museum of Partition in the red sandstone and ironically splendid Raj-era Town Hall. The coolly plain white-washed interior walks visitors through the reasons for the British not only quitting India in 1947, but also splitting the Punjab apart to form a Muslim-only new nation. 

The modern displays don’t just concentrate on the immediate violence and death that bubbled up as entire frightened and vengeful communities swapped territories, but also on the cultural losses. The contents of the National Library were split evenly; the contents of the museums were halved, even down to the exact number of ancient beads in a necklace. Traditional wedding singers lost their livelihood as their patrons migrated to a country they couldn't visit. 

The few stories of lasting relationships and cultural and commercial renewal at the end of the displays do not gloss over the real damage of national division that is embodied still in the nightly pantomime of aggression at the border gate. 

Amritsar: home of colour - and shadow.