The plan was to go north from Amritsar via Dalhousie, one of the hill stations set up by the Brits to escape the heat of the plains. But I met a band here in Delhi when my Delhi friend Satyen took me to one of their rehearsals, and I decided to come back to Delhi to attend this concert, the last one before they leave for two dates in South Korea. They’ve played in Europe, even being regulars at the Edinburgh Fringe.

I love the concept: take some « jazz/rock fusion » Mahavishnu style, then twist it and bend it with virtuoso Carnatic violin, tabla, and searing guitar solos, while a Sufi and a Hindustani vocalist take it out, and you have Mrigya. And it works very nicely!

In Amritsar, the guide book recommended Hotel Indus for the temple view from its roof restaurant. And a great view it is, making the extra expense acceptable. No WiFi in the hotel, but wired Ethernet connection provided for free, and some heavy-duty AC, the way I like it in times of  boiling streets, simmering temples and tropical drips.

Amritsar is « capital » to the Sikh, a religion/moral principal started in the sixteenth century CE as a reaction to Hinduism and Brahmin control of everything. Everybody persecuted them, the Mughal Empire, the British Empire, and even Indira Gandhi's government.

OK, I’m quite sure it goes deeper than that, but it’ll have to do for now by way of an explanation.

And the heart of their world is the famed Golden Temple, a beautiful rectangular building covered with gold (some say copper?!) in the middle of a sacred water tank. I had thought of going inside the temple crossing the causeway leading to it, but the huge throngs and the enormous heat made me stay on the tank’s perimeter, slowly going around, watching men, women and children all with their head covered, praying, genuflecting, washing their feet at the entrance, and bathing in the sacred waters within. That is to say, men and young men, bathing. No women in the water, or at least not at the time I was there.

Overwhelmed by the heat, I decided upon a simple solution, entirely unbuttoning my shirt. Not taking it off, mind, only opening it to let the non-existent breeze cool my dripping chest. Quickly enough, a smiling young man in turban and beard, carrying a pointy spear, came up to me and gestured for me to button up. "What about them?", I gestured in heavily accented Hindi, pointing to several men in loin cloth bathing in the tank nearby. Untouched by my unimpeachable Western logic, he motions again for me to button up, clearly implying that devout Sikh men in the midst of sacred ablutions is one thing, me showing my hairy chest is another! I did as I was told. The spear then moved away!

A pleasant thing also was the absence of  « guides », touts and assorted hustlers, always smiling with a quick explanation about anything and their hand out before you can say « No, thanks! ». Everything is free and open to all, including vegetarian meals served to the pilgrims. From dawn till late at night, the crowds mill about the tank and the temple, make obeisance, kneel and prostrate themselves in front of idols and renditions of gurus, bathe, sleep in the shade of a gallery that runs along the entire perimeter, take photos, and of course many have an i-Phone or Samsung Galaxy velcroed to their ears, showing to whoever doubted it that hi-tech western consumerism and more-or-less ancient mysticism can co-exist nicely, thank you very much.