Punjab

As I write this, we're taking shelter from a sudden downpour in an internet cafe in Dharamsala, the Tibetan colony in the Himalayas where the Dalai Lama lives. We plan to stay here until the 6th, which is the Dalai Lama's birthday and would give us the opportunity to see him speak at the central Buddhist temple. But, before I get to writing more about that, I have to explain the excellent time we've had for the past few days in the Sikh state, Punjab.

Our first stop was Chandigarh, which is the joint capital of both Punjab and the neighboring state Haryana. Chandigarh was one of those last minute decision places: our choice to go relied on a few intriguing things we'd read in the guidebook and a heavy dose of whim.

The city is, by definition, an artificial one: it was designed by Le Corbusier in the 1950's in an ultramodern, eerily utopic style. It's divided into neat sectors of similar sizes, connected by long strips of green walkways and wide streets. In it's center there's a promenade, which is for pedestrians only, and an enormous manmade lake. It's also completely spotless. In short: it's nothing like the rest of India, at all.

Our first stop there was to the architecture museum, which told us much about the original design plans and had some fabulous early sketches by Le Corbusier and his team. The museum itself was pretty dated, which I actually enjoyed: seeing the fifties through the lense of the seventies is pretty intellectually stimulating, and the information was still accurate and informative. It was a great place to visit at the beginning of our journey, because it gave us insight into the layout of the city, including delightful details to look out for, like the relief carving of the city plan on every manhole cover in Chandigarh.

But far more informative than any museum the friend we made outside of it, the unofficial (but also pretty official) tourist reception chair of Chandigarh, Narinder Singh. Mr. Singh, who found us having a sit at the museum snack shop (hilariously named the "Stop and Stare"), is 73 year old man who at one point was on the staff of the former chief minister of Chandigarh. In 1959, he was assigned to give a group of America Peace Corp volunteers a tour of the city, and immediately became hooked on the activity. It was hard to believe at first that this man was for real: is kind of a bumbling old guy with a dusty brown Sikh-style turban who carries around two shopping bags of junk at all times. But he had the paperwork to back his story up: photocopies of a few newspaper articles about him, and--get this-- a guestbook, which he promptly had us sign after allowing us to flip through and see messages from visiting folks of all nationalities--some that had even been dated that day. After signing his guestbook and showing us the articles, he presented us various gifts (including some fruit, a garland, and a pamphlet about Chandigarh) and had us take photos of him presenting them to us, for which he would put on a pair of glasses that he did not seem to ever wear, otherwise.

Mr. Singh is surely eccentric, if not flat out crazy, but most definitely harmless, and extremely knowledgeable about his city, so we let us guide him around for the next five hours ago. During this time we learned that he thinks he has about 5,000 notebooks filled with signatures (not surprising since we saw him collect at least four while we were with him) and that he believes he meets about 25% of foreign visitors of Chandigarh-- including Le Corbusier himself, who he met many times while he was working in the chief minister's office. The man is truly a legend.

Mr. Singh took us through various parks, a couple clean bathrooms (remember he's 73), and a few government establishments for tea/mangoes, all the while teaching us random Hindi phrases and inquiring every few minutes if "everything was very good?". Our favorite stop by far was to the Nek Chand Fantasy Rock Garden, which is a huge art installation made by another eccentric Chandigarhian who was once a road inspector but decided one day to begin to create this garden out of interesting rocks and figurines made of found objects and recycled waste. He had begun his project on government land, but, in the interest of the beauty of the city, government officials allowed him to continue--eventually taking it on as a government project. It is now an enormous labyrinthical complex with multiple waterfalls, walls made of mosaiced dishwear, small animal sculptures of broken glass bangles...really, only pictures can do it justice, but those will have to wait until we return!

At the end of the day we bought Mr. Singh dinner, and then he guided us to (of all places) the town KFC (which he called "KCF"), where he spoke to someone behind the counter who gave him a fee balloon, which he then presented to me as a gift, which he, of course, requested we photograph.

After Chandigarh, we head off to Amritsar, the city of the holiest Sikh temple, the Golden Temple. The temple itself was very impressive-- a bright gold structure in the center of a lake, surrounded by a marble promenade and other marble buildings. But what was most moving to us was not the structure itself, but the environment that it created. Thousands of Sikh pilgrims sat around the lake praying, some bathing in the water. Beautiful music for tabla, voice, and harmonium was projected through the complex. People shuffled around barefoot, heads covered with either turbans or scarves, smiling at us and saying hello and wandering in and out of the temple.

The interior of the temple matches the opulence you'd imagine from a 24 karat structure-- filigreed ceilings, intricate marble inlayed floors. As we entered we realized that the music that was being projected was being played by musicians inside, on (not surprisingly) golden instruments. On the top level of the temple, behind a pane of glass, sat an old, old man flipping through the pages of a giant, giant book, the Sikh holy book. The original copy of the book is housed in the temple, and we were fortunate enough to see the ceremonial transfer of the book from the temple to one of the other buildings in the complex, where it stays for the night (for some reason...)

As night fell, sleeping people took over the temple: the entire complex was literally covered with sleeping folks, some just passed out directly on the marble. The complex even housed us (in a dorm for foreigners) and fed us in a large dining hall that served food 24-hours (I think Yotam is blogging about that right now so I'll leave it to him to explain the ingenuity behind the dining system). Not to mention, all of this was free of charge.

The rain outside has stopped, so it's time for us to continue our adventure. We're starting to feel pangs of reality that our trip will soon come to an end, and want to get in as many more wonderful experiences in as possible!