Trip to Annandpur Sahib (City of Bliss)

Guru Gobind Singh spent a lot of time in this area. It is very rural, hilly, lots of rivers. It’s farming country, but also a source of hydroelectric energy. We are there to meet again with the government official in charge of health care delivery for the state of Punjab. One of our proposals is to train the government’s psychiatrists in our approach to de-addiction (the Indian word for drug treatment.). We would like this beautiful training facility in this beautiful, holy area to be used for the training.

It’s also two days away from the hospital. We are burnt out trying to deal with the truth and falsehood of allegations floating around. I hope to be able to tell you more about this situation in a future Blog posting tentatively titled Skullduggery and Bukar (Bribery), but right now it’s still too aggravating. Anyway, we had an excuse to get away.

The official is impressed with the facility, as am I. It must be on 60 acres or more, beautifully constructed on a hill over looking a very rural countryside. (see pictures)

We drive 5 hours to get there on Friday and return home on Saturday so it’s not exactly relaxing, but a great getaway nonetheless.

There is a teacher training (in Kundalini Yoga) course going on while we are there. 37 students from 10-15 different countries. This is their last weekend. They are practice teaching. They seem to have had a wonderful 3 weeks.

We get up early Saturday morning (3:30 AM) in order to visit some of the temples (gurdwaras) and Guru Gobind Singh’s fort in the Amrit Vela (Nectural Morning). For some we drive, for others we walk. Each has been built in a place of historical significance. One is where Guru Teg Bahadur meditated for some years; another is where his head was cremated after having been beheaded in New Delhi by the Mogul Emperor (a good story, perhaps another time.) It’s a beautiful morning of meditation.

On the way back, we go to _________ where the Siri Singh Sahib’s ashes will be put in the river. It is a traditional place for ashes among the Sikhs. In the 30 minutes or so that we are there, we see several families putting ashes in the river. There is nothing uplifting about this place. It is depressing. The river is shallow and slow moving. It is not pretty. Mostly ashes have been brought in plastic bags (cheap shopping bags). The bags are also dumped in the river. It’s BAD. The Gurdwara appears to be under going renovation. I hope it is done before the entourage gets there in January with the ashes. Right now it is fairly funky. The pictures look surprisingly better than it looked in real life – both the river and the Gurdwara. Maybe it was because the vibe was so heavy that it looked so bad, but I don’t think so.

Guru Nanak would get harassed by his family when he was young because he would go into the cemetery and meditate. He said we are all going here…

The drive back is miserable. We take a short cut and get lost. It gets dark. It gets foggy. The traffic is awful. People drive on the highway like bees swarming. 20 kilometers outside of Amritsar we drive into the back of a small car which then hits the car in front of it. I thought it was going to be much worse that it was. It was VERY scary for a few eternal seconds. No one is hurt, our car is not damaged (We’re in a Tata Sumo, an Indian SUV, massive). The car in front of us has its rear bashed in. No one is hurt. There are five large men in the small car in front of us. The first one out is carrying a sub machine gun. Another eternal second…

We learn later that we have rear ended the Chief of Police and his body guards. “NO problem”, our driver says. “This is India”, he says; “Everything is fine”. Our driver is very sweet, but I’m not liking him at this moment. After a couple of hours in the police station parking lot (change the picture in your head, this is India. Think more like field on the side of the road behind locked gates), a few thousand rupees (bukar) exchange hands. The driver takes care of everything. Before we leave the Station, the policeman in charge of the police station and the only one who speaks English comes over to my window (We’ve never gotten out of the car, this whole time.). He’s very friendly, very warm. He explains to me how he has negotiated a solution agreeable to all parties. I acknowledge his accomplishment and thank him for his successful efforts. He knows we are with the “American Sikhs from Miri Piri Academy”. I suggest that he visit us some time and come over for lunch. He smiles and shakes my hand and says he would like that. It’s all theatre. We drive off
In an hour we are home. Glad to have gotten away. Glad to be home. Vowing no more trips at night. The fog is supposed to get worse in December and January.