We took a train ( 6 hour journey there and 8 hour journey back ) to Amritsar, Punjab. The first stop was Jallianwalla bagh, a memorial in rememberance of the massacre that took place during the time of Gandhi ( if you have seen the movie, you should already know what I am talking about ). The original gathering for Baisakhi ( the sikh religious new year) caused thousands of people to visit this place annually.. Jallianwala Bagh is where the tenth sikh guru, guru gobind singh, created the khalsa and added the name singh or kaur to every sikh's name.
On April 13, 1919, 1000 men, women, and children were killed and 2000 were wounded. They were performing a peaceful protest, and British Indian Army soldiers opened fire on the unarmed crowd.
History aside, the energy around the entire location is very morbid.. The martyr's well is a large well where almost 200 bodies were recovered after people starting jumping in to avoid the open fire. There is a small gallery that displays important people during the time, and I felt the worst energy from this room. There were children and women hiding in the small room the entire night waiting for the soldiers to leave, but noone would help any of them.
The eternal flame burns bright and is the most beautiful aspect of the memorial.. many people gave their respects to the victims by praying around it.
This memorial caused me to realize how valuable and mortal we really are.. and how cruel people can become. I could never understand how a man could open fire on an unarmed child in the name of war and I never will. Greed is the worst case of fear, because billions of people have been killed throughout history out of greed. The peaceful way is the hardest way, but it is the only way. No soldier involved in that massacre could have lived without guilt and nightmares of their actions and I will never believe that a human can find pleasure in the activity.
I believe that everyone knows by intuition that peace is the only way of living- but that we choose alternative methods out of fear and tradition.. we need to question those around us and start finding our answers if we want things to be different for children. I do not want my kids to live in a world full of murder.
THE GOLDEN TEMPLE
We stopped by the golden temple in Amritsar at night.. absolutely beautiful. I have never seen so much gold in one place. We returned the next morning to see the temple in the daylight, and it was even more amazing.. definetely one of the most incredible sights I've ever seen. I sat down near the enclosed water and just stared at the sunrise and the colors that reflected off the golden temple onto the water. People bathed in the water and it seemed that every single class in India was in the temple. That was the most beautiful aspect to me.. to finally see every caste and class in india coexist in a temple. Although the temple was Sikh, there were many hindus in the temple as well.. actually, there were a large variety of both people and religions in the temple.
My mind couldn't help but ponder.. the rupee worth of the temple was so ridiculously high, it could obviously save India of poverty. This was the highlight of my confusion of India.. it has the worst aspects of a third world country, and yet the most beautiful buildings in the world. Crazy.
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