Day seven found (now) Section 1, Team six (-pack) wandering around the city, video cameras in tow, for the”Culture Dash” that’s at the center of each residency’s CCL learning.  Given the choice of observing economic landmarks, political landmarks, or societal (religious) landmarks, the team chose to observe several religious landmarks around Delhi.

Gurudwara Bangla Sahib Sikh Temple

Gurudwara Bangla Sahib Sikh Temple

For the first stop on our ‘dash’, the team visited the Sikh Temple (left).  The religion, as I understand it, is somewhat of a hybrid of Islamic principles and Hindu principles, and most visibly observed as gentlemen wearing turbans with longish beards tied/twisted into various knots or curls.

Given the removing of shoes/foot bath requirement, as well as the need for visitors to be wearing a head-covering, the team decided to use the temple as a means of finding Sikh’s who would be willing to discuss their beliefs with us as part of the filmed interview process.  However, upon scouring the Internet for background information about the temple, I now realize what a boneheaded move I made by not going inside!  Seriously, visit the link above if you’re the type of person who likes majestic, historical buildings.  The outside, having scaffolding on the outside, fooled me into thinking that the temple wouldn’t be that impressive.  Stupid assumption!  Just goes to show, I still haven’t found the proper amount of preparation when I visit these countries.

Perhaps I should chance ‘Delhi Belly‘ again some time in the future so I can re-visit this temple.

Sacred Heart Cathedral Church

Our second stop was to visit the Sacred Heart Cathedral Church.  Of the three religious landmarks the team visited, seeing this church was probably the most interesting of the three stops for me; even though I’m a non-practicing Catholic, seeing ornate churches actually interests me quite a bit.

Unlike the Sikh temple, which had scaffolding on the outside and had generally run-down infrastructure surrounding the grounds, this church was immaculate inside the gates.  There was a tree inside planted by Pope John Paul II in 1986, a ‘Hail Mary’ praying area (outside), and then one of the hardest sights that I saw while in India.

Touring Agra, then Jaipur, and finally ending up in Delhi, the best phrase I can think of to describe the experience is “cognitive dissonance.”  For every forward-thinking and developed area you see in India, there are things like walking over a pile of rubble to enter a nice restaurant that cause a level of confusion (to say nothing of the public emptying of bladders and bowels the group experienced on the pre-term bus trip).

"Change the world with children, care for every child"; this child was literally yards away from the sign.

Walking onto the church grounds, you pass through wrought iron gates, and on the other side it felt like the street noise dimmed, and everything around became “clean”.  I swear when I walked in, the child on the right was not there.  After a few minutes observing the general grounds, I saw the sign, thought it expressed an interesting sentiment and took a picture.   At the same time, out of the corner of my eye I sensed there was someone nearby.  I turn around to find this little girl staring up at me.

Was this a setup?  As I said, she was NOT there when I walked through the gates.  Did someone just leave her there, and if so, what did they think we were going to do?  It didn’t appear that this child was a proficient walker, even in an advanced age when she should’ve been able to move freely.  The worst part about these thoughts is, in talking to some of my Indian classmates and friends, it very well MAY have been a setup in order to gain sympathy (and hopefully a few rupees).  As the cognitive dissonance of the sign/child hit, the team moved to the inside of the church.

Lotus Temple

The final stop on the trip was the Lotus Temple, one of seven of the Houses of Worship for the Bahá’í faith.  Interestingly, according to Wikipedia the Lotus Temple gets more visitors per year than the Taj Mahal or the Eiffel Tower, 4 million per year.

With the focus of the faith being one of inclusiveness, the Temple in itself isn’t much more than the outer visual of the building.  There are no religious pictures, sermons delivered, or any other overt ‘elements’ of any religion once inside.  Like other houses of worship the team visited, it was a requirement to take off your shoes.  There was also the requirement of complete silence on the inside, leaving each person to their own thoughts and feelings.

For me, the feeling of being inside this huge dome in complete silence was that of being in a fishbowl.  There are wooden folding chairs in the center of the space, with near 360 degree glass on the ground level.  Looking upwards, the dome is relatively closed off, no stained glass or the like, creating a darker inside than outside.  There are a few areas where natural light is let in at the ceiling, and it does create an interesting effect against the ‘petal’ ceiling.

But other than that, there wasn’t a whole lot to see, outside of the sheer number of people visiting the Temple on Friday afternoon.  Having visited both the Taj Mahal and the Lotus Temple, I can only assume that the higher number of visitors to the Lotus Temple is due to ease of access, not a commentary on which building is more visually impressive.

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