The-World-Noticed-Us
Next India. Adding the border ceremony here.
The girl at the bank grew excited. I’d gone there in advance of my trip to exchange dollars for rupees.
They couldn’t do this, but I forgot all about it as soon as her eyes lit.
“My family is from Punjab.”
Her face glowed.
“You have to go—the Golden Temple. I went last summer. It’s… it’s beautiful. The music, the people—everything. Promise me?”
She even wrote its name on a receipt so I wouldn’t forget.
I emailed my brother that evening with a simple request:
“When I come to visit next week, I want to go to the Golden Temple.”
~
I awoke in the soft light of morning, feeling the gentle sway of the tracks beneath my cot. The rhythm slowed—we were nearing a station.
I had set no alarm and heard no announcement, but I knew we’d arrived.
I found my brother still sleeping in his bunk.
“Wake up. Amritsar.”
A bus to the Golden Temple was already idling outside.
We climbed aboard and found seats near the back.
The bus filled, and so did the air—first with one voice, then many. Passengers began chanting.
I watched from my seat, noticing their long black hair and beards combed into turbans.
Their metal bracelets.
Their decorative knives.
The way their mouths moved in unison—quite individually, but loud together—filling the bus with the rise and fall of lyrical prayer.
One of the singers looked at me.
~
At the Golden Temple, I stayed on the bus longer than needed, letting the pilgrims exit first and create some space. Then I rejoined my brother and stepped into the midday sun.
The air smelled faintly of incense, water, and stone. A trough flowed across the entrance.
I removed my shoes and stepped through it, letting the current carry away the filth of the city and the hardship of my journey.
From a nearby tote, I picked a scrap of golden cloth, and hesitantly tied it over my head. I looked at my brother—his own hair now covered with a frayed scrap of gray fabric. Then I gave him an awkward smile.
The bare marble felt cool and slick under my bare feet, and the sun did not feel so harsh here.
Live music and chanted scriptures filled the air, emanating from the temple, where they kept the religion’s sacred texts by day.
A man washed his clothes. He dipped them among the fish. Another wrung out his shirt and spread it across the railing. A boy sat beside him, eating from a metal bowl.
A priest intercepted us.
“Have you heard of Baba Singh?”
Then he told me a story of a saint decapitated in battle, who picked his head off the ground, held it to his shoulders, and fought his way to this very temple that he might die a hero and fulfill a prophecy.
I shook my head and headed right to the sanctum.
It rested on a platform in the middle of a wide, man-made pool, its gilded walls and domes reflecting across the water.
As we exited the sanctum, a priest placed a scoop of lentil pudding in my hands.
I held it for a few minutes, then tossed it over the railing to the fish.
My brother said nothing.
~
Outside, we found a Jeep. It had duct tape holding it together.
“Atarri,” the driver confirmed.
We climbed in.
It rattled down the road as the Pakistani border gates rose in the distance.
Our driver parked in a dusty field alongside a hundred similar vehicles and promised to wait for our return.
I had no idea how I would ever find him again.
Now on foot, I followed the crowds, wading into the sea of people—tourists and locals alike who had come to this remote place.
Metal bleachers climbed the Indian side of the road.
I found seats halfway up, the afternoon sun heating the steel beneath us as the crowd slowly filled the rows.
Across the gate, I saw another crowd doing the same.
On the street before us, children ran flags to the border gate and back.
Someone with a microphone held a single note impossibly long.
Then the crowd erupted—cheering, dancing, and chanting:
“Goodbye, India! See you tomorrow, Pakistan!”
As the sun dipped toward the horizon, the guards emerged.
Boots snapped skyward.
Feathered crests bobbed with every stamp.
They charged the gate in sharp, hurried steps until Indian and Pakistani soldiers stood face-to-face.
Flags lowered through the gates, the hazy sun settling between them.
Families gave one last wave, and the gates between India and Pakistan closed with the night.
I walked into the shadows with the dispersing crowds, wondering how I would ever find my ride.
Somehow, among the dust, darkness, and people, my driver stepped forward.
“Hey. Let’s get you home.”
~
The temple appeared— lit up and shining in the darkness.
I slapped the side of the Jeep.
“Let me out here.”
Then I ran.
The music had ended at sundown, and although the temple itself could not be entered, worshipers still gathered here.
They bathed in the pools, they knelt in prayer in the alcoves.
White palaces encircled the ground. Within them, the Golden Temple held a free kitchen, feeding tens of thousands daily.
Now, those hungry pilgrims lay beneath the colonnades, their shoes arranged neatly beside them. Others slept with their heads resting on folded clothes.
I walked around them, careful not to step on anyone’s things, passing the alcoves where people knelt in prayer and the shallow steps where they sat with their feet in the water.
Outside, I found an auto-rickshaw and gave the driver my hotel name.
As we pulled away, I looked back through the open side. The Golden Temple still shone through the heat.