Chapter 34: History or Something Like It

Today, as often seems to happen when you put a whole bunch of women together, we set out to make history, or something like it. I hardly think I need to explain that India is a heavily patriarchal society. So you put a bunch of women together in India… well history or something like it can hardly be avoided.

I woke up JUST in time to eat some soggy cornflakes and dash over to the Golden Temple for our little meeting outside the Akal Takhat. We had a circle meeting every morning. The thing that was important this morning was that we had planned a procession around the parkarma. I was supposed to be a photographer (yay cool cameras!).

After our circle dispersed, the chosen crew (plus photographers) made our barefoot way across the Amritsar streets to the little bookshop where we would pick up our new Siri Guru Granth Sahib that one of the ladies had purchased. We all filed into the little back room to work out the logistics of traveling with the Siri Guru Granth Sahib and to make the exchange. As we made our way back out, chanting gobinde mukhande, my job of darting and dodging in my attempts to document the event began.

Our barefooted crew of women made our way back through the streets of Amritsar, chanting, bearing the Guru under a red umbrella chandoa, already drawing gaping stares. We came down the stairs to the parkarma where the rest of the women were waiting to meet us, not to mention a very large crowd of fascinated Indians. The women of course stepped in right behind us. But the Indians did not hesitate either. Their faces were glowing as we approached the parkarma and we had hardly gone a hundred feet before they had dropped in behind us. Every step that we took around the nectar tank people would be stopped in smiling amazement and every step brought more and more to the following crowd until soon there were well over fifty Indians eagerly keeping pace.

By the time we made our second loop around the Golden Temple, the crowd had grown to the size where all you could see of the Guru was the little red umbrella bobbing up and down over the multicolored sea of turbans. By the time we ascended the stairs back up to the street, we had even attracted the attention of one of the TV cameras.

We made our way back to the hotel, the whole sangat following along behind us, all the way into the hotel, all the way up the stairs, where we completely crowded the stairwells, stairways, hallways, and small room as we said the ardas. The bole so nihals (and corresponding sat siri akals) resounded through the building with such force that I think everyone within a half-mile radius must have been inadvertently blessed. At any rate, it seemed loud enough to knock down the “unstable” building that’s been next door for years.

The event came to a close when the entire building simultaneously decided that it was lunch time. Me and Nirinjan (ahem, Nirinjan and I) discovered the fabulous wonder of Kulcha Land, got a couple of suits adjusted (YAY!), and then went to go shopping for Nirinjan’s wedding reception shoes. There was a point at which I believe a specimen of each and every possible gold shoe in the entire store was strewn about at Nirinjan’s ankles as she delicately slipped her foot back and forth between them, trying to decide which would best suit the occasion and her soles.

When we got back to the hotel I was so tired I dropped immediately into a very deep, three hour nap. When, at the end of that time, Nirinjan came in to show me her wedding dress, I was fully convinced she was waking me up for sadhana, and I was rather confused about the manner in which she was going about it. Why she was carrying this dress around at three in the morning and why she seemed so bloody alert were both mystifying questions that took me a good foggy few minutes to work through. I had to ask her both what time it was and what day it was, and when I got the answer I had the distinct feeling of having traveled backwards in time. It was all very exhausting.

Saibi and Ruby showed up, we broke into the absolute wonder that is torrone from Florence, we chatted about this and that and took forever to go to bed, and now here I am at 12:21 (good time, eh?) with a 4:30 alarm set on my phone. Oh well, I had a nap, right?