35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

194
EMPIRE OF THE SOUL
for this Green Revolution went largely to the hardworking Sikhs
of the fertile Punjabi plains.
In 1976, after the tumult of the past, and blissfully unaware of
the bloodshed to come, Amritsar rested as calm and placid as that
mirror of the azure sky, the waters of the Pool of Tranquillity itself.
The Pool is a manmade lagoon where pilgrims bathe, and after
which Sikhism’s holiest city takes its name. In the centre of this lagoon,
accessible only by a narrow causeway of white marble over two
hundred feet long, flanked by two lines of nine elegant gilded lamps,
stands the Golden Temple, Mecca for India’s more than thirteen
million Sikhs, the physical centre of their world. It is a structure of
unearthly beauty, a shimmering vision entirely covered in copper
gilt and gold leaf, with inner walls of near-translucent marble inlaid
with semiprecious stones in designs as intricate and as surpassingly
magnificent as those found in the Taj Mahal or any other supreme
achievements of Moghul architecture. The plasterwork and mirrors
on the ceilings shower the interior with flashing stars reflected from
candles and oil lamps, or from the sun itself reflecting off the
surrounding waters. Its founder, Guru Arjun Dev, described his
temple as a ship built to carry the faithful safely across the oceans of
ignorance of this world.
Ray, who had been in Amritsar possibly several dozen times, had
never seen the temple before, and, what’s more, had no desire to
ever see it. ‘Sikhs give me the creeps,’ he explained. ‘You should see
the size of the fuckin’ knives those guys carry. Go in there, pal,
you’ll be fuckin’ salami in ten seconds.’
He said he wanted to visit a friend. I wondered who this would
be. As always, I had to be content with finding out when it was too
late to get out.
Overhead, in the high blue air, kitehawks deployed downwind.
On the crumbling stone roofs of houses lining a labyrinth of narrow,
muddy lanes, vultures scanned the world below for courses for their
endless dinner party. Filthy and depraved-looking, hunched in
feathers that resembled shredded academic gowns, they reminded
me of a sadist who’d once been my housemaster at school.
The air was pungent with spices. Hunks of simmering warriorfood
in vast copper pots that squatted over charcoal braziers.