There are times when I travel that my heart just soars; I can feel it in my chest. Everything is so fresh, new, wonderful and good. And when I went out today, got in my sparkling Ambassador, and headed west toward Amritsar, it was one of those times.
Objectively, there was probably nothing special about the morning as we got out of Delhi ahead of the traffic. But for me, it was being where I’d never been. For example, we passed a tired bus stand, and in the center of the roof sat a peacock with its tail in full display. If the bird hadn’t turned its head, I’d have thought it was a decoration. Because the morning was still cool, the athletic fields we passed were full of kids playing cricket. And as we continued, we went through some absolutely gigantic landfill…a quarter mile wide and extending to the horizon on either side. This is the place you always see in pictures with pitiful people rummaging through arriving garbage. However, there were no people rummaging, and the thought crossed my mind that, if there had been some fencing, I wouldn’t have even known the dump was there (we have the exact same thing on south Moreland with better fencing). Further outside the city, we moved into a small industrial zone. There were little, worn-out factories with super tall, thin, wire-secured, rusting smoke stacks. God knows what the factories were making. I didn’t see a single worker, but from the top of the wall around one of the factories, some big, dirty monkeys were watching something going on inside.
This is the kind of thing I love.
It was eight hot hours heading west from Delhi on the Grand Truck Road. There was road construction in almost every town, and it looked like they were building an elevated road above the one we were driving on. When all these are finished, it’ll be great, but today, they were just creating a dusty, hot, honking logjam. Thank god my Ambassador had air conditioning. One good thing about the jams was that I got a chance to see market India outside my cool little bubble. What a mix of color and what a variety of people.
Amritsar looked like all the other hot, dusty towns we’d been through, but I was very glad to check into a hotel that had a cool garden and, I was informed, the only bar in Amritsar that had Kingfisher on draught. Showered, I went to straight to the bar to sample the draught and get a bite. Had coriander vegetable soup (to die for!) and a sandwich, but I wasn’t able to dine in private due the friendly attentions of a social drunk. Some poor sot – literally, I’m afraid – insisted I join him for a beer, and I had agreed before I noticed how slurred his speech was. So I got to hear all about his career as a social worker in England, his retirement because of a back problem, his move to Goa, his problems getting Indian nationality (born in Kenya of Indian ancestry, which probably explained the pith hat and safari shorts he was wearing) and his plans for his family’s property in the area. I bailed on that conversation as fast as I could, which was not fast enough. Fortunately, Bharat Sikh, my driver, already had the car ready for our next little jaunt -- to the border with Pakistan.
No, not to sneak across. The nightly “Closing the Border” ceremony here is a THING in India,
and people come from all over the country to watch it. The spectacle is a big nationalist celebration with music, chanting, military marchings about, and celebration. Think nightly 4th of July with the Braves. It’s so big that there are three huge viewing stands for the crowds to sit in, and there is still a big overflow. Same’s true on the Pakistani side. But for all the patriotic fervor, it’s interesting that the whole show on the Indian side is tightly choreographed with the show on the Pakistani. Each side has to hit its marks to make the thing go right on either side of the border.The scene was so much bluster and blow to me, but fortunately, I ended up beside a lawyer from Delhi who was in Amritsar for the day for a case. I had climbed over a concrete wall between bleachers, but I slipped on the metal sheet covering the joint between bleachers and slid several rows down the stand before the helpful crowd pushed me off and into a space beside the guy. Like everyone there, he was very friendly and was able to fill me in on parts of the crowd frenzy. Some of the music was from a very popular Bollywood movie, and some chanting from an Indian independence militant, apparently the Malcom X to India’s Ghandi. People really got into it. Soon, some guards marched out and ran up and down with flags while the crowd roared and chanted, and then the formal guard came out with their head gear that looked a bit like a rooster’s crown. They triple-time marched to the border gate, yelled, hooted, huffed, and marched back from the gate, goose-stepping higher than a martial arts master can kick. I was impressed if somewhat amused, and I saw the same thing was happening on the Pakistani side. Finally, both sides threw their gates open at the same time, hooted threateningly, and assumed theatrical poses holding the lines to their respective flags. Following a shout and flourish, both flags came down the poles in half-a-second. The Bruce Lee kick-stepping resumed as the gates simultaneously slammed loudly shut on both sides of the border, and it was all over. What a show.
I gave my cultural interpreter a lift back to Amritsar to catch his bus to Delhi. Can you imagine an American lawyer riding a bus at all, much less taking one for sixteen hours round trip? Anyway, this guy works for a firm that represents American Express, and he’d had to file some depositions with the court and contact a local office to supervise the case. For that, he’d come all the way out here. I hope his firm wasn’t billing by the hour…..
I got back to the hotel in time for a late dinner, but afraid the chummy drunk was still lurking in bar, I went to my room and called room service.
ADDED NOTE: The title is a slogan I saw on a car sunshade (no bumper stickers here). I also saw a school called Secular Heart Academy. This place can ring my anti-ecclesiastical chimes.
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