Ganga is the life
Varanasi, the holiest place in India, where a drop of Ganges water can wash away your sins, where dying here offers Moksha (escape from the cycle of birth and death), where all the maddest, most intense elements of India wash together. If Varanasi was my first stop in India it’s fair to say it’d have blown my friggin head off.
Our Rickshaw wouldn’t take us any further towards the ghats. The town was a riot of colour, stained by the assalts of hundreds of men (and a few bold women). The morning of the Holi festival had left buildings and signs splattered and people covered head to toe in neon powder pigment. Even the sacred cow had been walloped with paint. The Dutchies and I left Mahoba station at midnight to arrive in Varanasi that morning, in time to get amongst it. But curse our luck, trapped on the train we were delayed 5 hours, by which time the shinanegans were over. The streets in the aftermath were nearly deserted. Dejected, I lay down my paint guns and surrendered to the guesthouse.
Holi is supposed to be the celebration of the end of some sort of winter in the north, but nobody could really tell you that. It was just a party to them. Varanasi soon picked up for the evenings festivities and the streets came alive with dancing in the streets and a ritual fire performance on the main ghat. As the evening came towards an end and I headed to my room the fates dealt out my secret wish – a small party dancing by a Shiva shrine initiated me with a pelting of red paint.
The Ganga (Ganges) is the spiritual life for millions of Hindus, an extreme paradox as the river is so polluted its septic. At sunrise on the second morning a boatman rowed Sebastian, Mareke and I down the river to experience daily life on the ghats. It all happens here – women bathe in their Saris, men in their Lungis, many drink a dose of Ganga potion from a brass vessel before performing their rites. Others are content swimming and playing in the river. Dhobis beat the dirt out of clothes on stone slabs at another ghat further up the river. The most sacred ghats however, where your own presence as a foreigner is conspicious, are the burning ghats. Until only 5 years ago these ghats were off limits to foreigners. Respect demands that no photos be taken here. People come to Varanasi to die. Its an honour.
I was sitting at an internet cafe knocking out some emails when I heard chanting down the lane, building closer. Out the window a body wrapped in saffron fabric edged with golden tassels was carried on a bamboo ladder by men, tailed closely by family and friends. They didn’t dawdle. Death was accepted, there were responsibilities to be carried out. On a death there is no delay in organising the funeral and ceremony. In less than an hour at least nine bodies passed my window in this manner. They were heading to the burning ghats to be cremated on the platform level that befitted their caste.
The eldest son circles the fathers body clockwise 5 times, before the Brahmin priest overseeing the rites pours ghee (butter) on the body to aid burning, and sandlewood to disguise the smell of burning flesh. Only men are allowed on the ghats, women are too emotional and unpredictable. Widows are known to throw themselves onto the flames. In 3 hours when the cremation is complete the skull is broken open with a bamboo pole to release the soul. In the case of families that could not afford enough wood, unburned parts of bodies are simply thrown in the Ganga. Children aren’t burned, just ceremoniously passed into the water. Neither are those that dies of smallpox (there is a smallpox god which has already taken their souls). Animal carcuses aren’t burned either – cows, mangy dogs, the lot, all get thrown in the Ganga. Day and night the burning of bodies on the wooden pyres continues…
The backstreets of Varanasi are literally a maze. The lanes, just wide enough for you and a cow to pass each other, cut left and right, turn back on themselves and abruptly become dead ends. Its impossible to get anywhere, including out of the maze, without regularly asking for directions. Its fortunate that at this time of the year the Ganges is low enough that its possible to walk along the ghats on the river front. In the monsoons the water comes right up to the buildings. Fires smolder at some junctions in the road and all kinds of rubbish sit in gutters. Benares (Varanasi) is known for its silk and there are no shortage of merchants with an uncles shop to visit. Fried street food is on every corner, in one spot just down from an open urinal that flows into the gutter. Shrines to Ganesh, Vishnu and Shiva are carved into walls, and at odd times of the day people queue outside of temples for a service or a puja (blessing). Just as rabid looking dogs linger in the alleys monkeys scout from the roofs. I watched as one shot down and stole some guys Chapati (indian bread). A few hours melting in the literal and figurative heat of this caldron can leave you spent. Fortunately a sickly sweet chai always rejuvenates.
Some other characters I met at our guesthouse and I took to the streets in search of Varanasi’s ultimate passtime. Just before sunset paper kites litter the skys, and by sundown many litter the powerlines. Bold as anything, nostalgically remembering our childhood kite flying expertise we took to the ghats. I think Dan won the chocolate bar. Mine lasted about .3 seconds as it went up and smashed back down, punctured on the stairs. You see there’s a little art to flying these – unlike our kites these are only strung at two points which sends them spiralling in unpredictable directions and requires a constant tugging to get keep them on the geotherms. The little kids, again, showed us how it was done.
Varanasi is a place not to be seen but experienced. Even after spending 5 days here I knew I had only grabbed a peek into this seemingly timeless phenomenon. My photographs fall short of capturing the assalt on my senses – the brilliance of Varanasi’s silk and monotones of the burning ghats. Or the smells of Chai and sweets that mingle with rubbish, cow shit and urine. Or the sounds of chanting for the dead and the pleading of beggars backed by a random Hindi dance track booming from godknowswhere. Here, more than anywhere else in India, concepts of ‘normal’, or ‘common sense’ are not only absent, but non-sensical. The futility of reason is easily beaten down by a blank look.
As a sign posted on a wall of the ghat read, ‘Ganga is the life’, and the way.
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In other news, while I was here
-Pakistan got up to win the 3rd test against India. You could feel the mood on the street sink.
-The US is going ahead with the sale of 70 F16′s to Pakistan, India’s arch enemy for decades. With seemingly callous concern for the fine balance of power in this region, the sale rewards Pakistans obedience in the War on Terror. Just how you fight terrorrism with F16′s has got me, but not to worry, the US say they’ll sell them to India too.
-The Aussies whitewashed us in the Cricket. The Black Caps make the sports pages everyday and the Indians know the score – at least at this time of writing we’re getting a little back on Sri Lanka.
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ps, photos are in the photolog under India > Varanasi
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