Varanassi, India

Doing laundry at the Ganges
Making a wish on a morning rowboat on the Ganges River
Dasaswamedh Ghat - the main ghat in Varanssi - where the nightly Puja festivities are held and the busiest of all the ghats in Varanssi
Harishchandra Ghat - cremations taking place

Walking along the ghats
Harishchandra Ghat - getting ready for the arrival of the recently deceased - you can see that below, closer to the river, there are people and other fires. Depending on your caste - you can be burned at different areas. Middle class castes are burned just next to the river, lower caste are farther away from the rivers edge and the one that is pictured here is saved for the Brahman, which is the highest ranking caste.
Stacks of wood piled up behind the Harishchandra Ghat - this is the smaller of the two main burning ghats in Varanassi. As you can see - there are fires going and this goes on every day, 24 hours per day.

After leaving ashram life, it was quite a shock to the senses to arrive in Varanasi. However, I was quite ready to get back into "real life." Much to my amazement, Varanassi seemed mellow in comparison to the other cities that I've visited in India. Varanassi stands in a class of its ow - it is believed to be one of the oldest living cities in the world. It is an extremely sacred place for Indians because it is the city of Shiva and the Great Mother, the Ganges River, which is considered the holiest place for a Hindu to be cremated after death. In the Hindu religion - dead bodies are burned, rather than buried and it is believed that burning purifies the soul - and if you are lucky enough to be burned at and disposed of in the Ganges River, then it is also believed that you will escape the cycle of life and death (called 'moksha'), since the Ganges is considered the river of salvation. So, Indians from all over India come to Varanassi to die and be burned at one of the several burning ghats. For as far as you can see, the western bank of the Ganges is lined with 80 ghats (cement steps where people come to bathe, do laundry, get cremated, brush their teeth, take a morning poop, peform religious rites - you name it). There are two ghats that are designated as the burning ghats, Harishchandra Ghat and Manikarnika Ghat, and it is here that the dead bodies are brought every day - 24 hours per day. The smaller of the two, Harishchandra Ghat, is one of the oldest ghats in Varanassi and also where I spent a lot of time observing and taking it all in - and I'm not just talking about the thick, black smoke. Manikarnika Ghat is much larger and always has more cremations occurring because it is the most auspicious place for a Hindu to be cremated. It was hard to believe that that many people are dying in Varanassi every day - one night, as we were taking an evening rowboat on the Ganges, I counted 10 fires burning at the smaller of the two burning ghats. I was morbidly fascinated with the entire process and spent an afternoon just sitting above the Harishchandra Ghat and observing. An Indian man explained to me the entire process, as I watched it occur before my eyes. When a person dies in India, their bodies must be dealt with immediatley - due to the lack of refrigeration. So, within a few hours after death, the body is put onto a bamboo stretcher, covered in colorful blankets, flowers, etc... and the men of the family carry the body through the streets in a funeral procession that leads down the road to the burning ghat. You know that it is coming because you can hear them singing, playing drums, dancing, etc.... They come marching down to the ghat and bring the body to the edge of the river. The body is then dipped into the Ganges and then the head is uncovered and the family members take water in their hands from the Ganges and put it into the mouth of the dead family member. After this, they build the fire, put the body onto the fire, throw a few more logs on top, march around the fire five times and then light it. It takes 3 hours for the body to incinerate and the bones that are left are thrown into the river. It is tradition for the closest family member to break open the skull once the body has been completely burned ( I thankfully did not observe this). The whole affair is attended only by men because they say that the women are too weak and they will breakdown and cry. You never see a person crying at this affair because death is viewed completely different in the Hindu religion - it is a celebration because the family member is exiting the cycle and reaching nirvana. It was very strange to be sitting in an internet cafe and watch the bodies and family members go by the window - I actually became a bit numb to it after awhile. As you sit at the ghat and see the bodies burning - along either side of the burning area you can see people doing their laundry, bathing, brushing their teeth, etc... Truly unbelievable. There are five types of people that are not burned and these are: pregnant women, children, a person who died from a snake bite (this has to due with the Hindu god - Shiva. Shiva is always pictured with a snake and therfore, anyone who dies from a snakebite is already purified), a person who died of leparcy (they don't want to risk spreading leparcy from burning the diseased body), and saddhus (holy men). Instead of being burned, these people are taken out into the middle of the Ganges River - where they tie a large rock around them and drop them to the bottom. They also dispose of dead cows this way and I had the pleasure (sarcasm here) of seeing a half-decayed cow carcass floating on the river while we took a rowboat on the river. The river is so heavily polluted at Varanasi that the water is septic - absolutely no dissolved oxygen exists. Samples from the river show the water has 1.5 million faecal coliform bacteria/100 ml of water. In water that is safe for bathing, this figure should be less than 500! And you sit there and watch people bathing, brushing their teeth and taking water into their mouths - it's unbelievable. I also want to mention the caste system a bit because I referred to it in one of the pictures above. In India, they still follow the caste system - meaning that before you are born, your caste (another word for class) is pre-determined. So, if you are born into the lowest caste - you will remain in the lowest caste for your entire life. The same goes if you are born into the highest caste. It is forbidden for someone of a lower caste to marry someone from a higher caste - although this system is slowly changing in India as more and more people are attending university and becoming more educated. And depending on what caste you are in - your line of work or livelihood is determined accordingly. And this follows you right up to your death when you are brought to the ghats to be burned. They have designated areas at the ghat in which you can be burned according to caste. The Brahman, or highest caste, is burned on a raised platform that is decorated with flowers (pictured above) and depending on their wealth - sometimes using sandalwood which is very expensive. The midde class castes can be burned right on the rivers edge - while the lower castes must be burned set back from the river. For families of a lower caste - it is extremely hard for them to afford to buy the wood needed to burn the body. They know exactly how many kilograms of wood is needed to completely burn a body so that there is no waste and so that people of a lower caste do not buy more than necessary. Each log is carefully weighed on giant scales so that the price of cremation can be calculated.

Okay, I think that's enough about dead people and burning bodies - but it's what is most vivid in my memory of Varanassi. We took a sunrise rowboat along the river as well as an evening rowboat to watch the nightly Puja festivities - which literally means 'respect' and it is an offering of prayers involving fire and dance. Every single night there is an elaborate performance - called the Ganga Aarti ceremony- at the Dasaswamedh Ghat to honor Shiva and the Mother Ganges (as they refer to it). The performance involves numerous ringing bells and men standing on platforms facing the river and circulating various things that were lit on fire. I didn't understand a lot of what they were doing but it was fascinating, nonetheless. I'm awe-struck by the seemingly endless religious rituals here in India. I don't know how they keep up with it all - there are so many Hindu gods, rituals, temples, celebrations, etc.... It seems that at any given time, a celebration is erupting - all surrounding one of the many Hindu gods - whether it be Rama, Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma, Ganesha, and the list goes on. Besides inhaling black smoke along the ghats, and taking rowboat cruises along the river, I got to go out and see some great live music on a few occasions. It was quite impressive to see the Indian men playing the tabla drums - as well as the sittar. We also took a tour around the city in a rickshaw to check out numerous temples, as well as the Muslim section of town where they die and weave silk to make elaborate and intricate scarves, wall hanings, tapestries, etc...

The plan after Varanassi was to go up to Darjeeling before catching my flight out of Kolkata on February 15th. However, after spending almost a month in Rajasthan and the northerly region - I decided that I didn't feel like being cold anymore. Up until this point, I had been wearing scarves, hat, fleece jacket, socks - basically everything warm that I had and during train travel, I was really cold. Since the moment that I arrived in India, I was being pulled in the southern direction and I decided that instead of going to Darjeeling, where it was extremely cold and snowing, I would extend my time in India and go south to the beaches. Amanda also decided to skip Darjeeling and instead, fly out of Kolkata early to go to Taiwan. So, we said our goodbyes and I hope to meet up with her in Indonesia. I left the afternoon after her and hopped on a train to head back to Bombay. Unfortunatly, I was sick with a bad head cold and had to endure a 29 hour train journey - in which I created a mountain of tissues the size of Everest and the Chinese people who were sharing my berth were throwing me oranges and giving me medicine that I didn't know how to take because it was all written in Chinese. It was one long journey and when I arrived in Bombay, I was supposed to have 6 hours to spare before boarding another train to Goa - this one only a 12 hour journey. I was feeling really spent and sickly. I had met an Indian guy, Chinni, in Pushkar who lived in Bombay and he gave me his email address just in case I ended up back in Bombay. We made plans to meet up during my layover in Bombay - and he graciously offered me a place to stay so that I could catch up on sleep if I wanted. I decided to accept his offer and catch up on some much needed Z's. It was just what I needed and I was ready to go the following night but unfortunately, the trains were all full and I had to take an overnight bus. And by now, we all know how much I LOVE bus travel in third world countries. I think I'm actually becoming numb to the erratic and reckless driving - it's just something that you have to accept because there isn't anything that you can do about it - except maybe pop a sleeping pill which is what I chose to do for this trip. My next destination was the state of Goa - to soak up some sun, get my feet in the sand and take a dip in the Arabian Sea.