We have just been to Amritsar, the Mekka of the Sikh: the city is home to the Golden Temple, where the Holy Book lies.

The Golden Temple is absolutely magnificent, both in the evening when the Book is put to rest, as well as during the day when one can visit the endless kitchens that prepare 40.000 meals a day....every day of the year. Anyone can visit and eat...the Temple is open to any nationality, religion or gender. It is truly remarkable and it was the first place in India where we felt the sense of spirituality that we had expected before we came here.
the complex itself is buzzing with people, both during the day as well as the evening. They are wandering about, sitting on the waterfront watching the temple, taking a dip in the Holy water (men out in the open, women in special little buildings where they can bathe undisturbed by curious eyes), or having a meal or a tea in one of the enormous dining halls.
We were invited to join in making chapati's, of which 100.000 are produced every day; the whole thing seems to be a social gathering where one catches up on the latest gossips. The atmosphere was wonderful.

And one wonders...if such a thing of beauty and peace and spirituality originated in India, could it then be that the we hoped to see India is hidden but still out there? What lies beneath the surface?

Back in Delhi, and life turns back to normal.
Normal means that I go shopping for our weekly meals, and on the way there are at least 5 locations where I will hear that familiar sound of nails tapping on my window...."chapati mama, rupees, khana...". Sometimes they are women with babies (possibly not their own), sometimes crippled people, sometimes children...and everytime it makes me feel horrible because I have to shake "no".

No, I should not give them money. They are poor, no doubt about that, but my money will not make a difference because many of them have fallen into the claws of organised crime and will have to give the money they "earned" to their "boss" at the end of the day...we cannot distinguish the ones that are exploited from the ones that are not, and giving money will only keep the system going, so we give nothing.

And so, every week, I sit and say "no" and then ignore the wailing and pleading...with shoppings in the back of my car, feeling horrible and guilty and hating India for making me feel this way.

T and I have also been wondering what will happen to all the beggars around the time of the Commonwealth games, in 2010. Everywhere there is construction going on, to the metro, to roads, hotels, busstands etc., so the city will look polished and modern and developed by the time the world attention turns on it. Our guess is that all beggars will be swept off the street just before the games and will be put on a train to the desert in Rajasthan. The slums are being torn down as we speak, so the people are now literally living on the street...not a very nice sight when you drive up to your five-star hotel.

But it doesn't solve the problem. As long as there is no social security system to fall back upon, education for the kids or a law that they must go to school (and enforcement of that law!), shelter, medical care, and most of all the WILL to help them instead of pretending they are not there, nothing will change.

Movies like Slumdog Millionaire are actually based upon the truth, be it that the truth is even a lot uglier than the movie. And here in India there is no escape from the truth, which is why it is probably such a hard country to deal with mentally, at least for me.

I could choose to escape from the truth by letting my housekeeper do the shopping (like many expats do) and limit my days to playing tennis, reading books and go for a coffee at a friend's house, but it doesn't feel right. I would be placing myself out of reality and that is not why we moved to another country. The challenge is to learn to deal with it and to realise that it does not make me a bad person if I shake "no"....and so I go shopping, ignoring the tapping on my window - just another normal day in India.