Varanasi

Last year I was in Sela bar in Leeds city centre. I remember a conversation I had with a friend. We were talking about travelling, and he was telling me about his experience of Varanasi. He did not like it. He informed me of the role that the river Ganges played in Varanasi's relationship with death, but the strongest memory I have of this conversation was his talk of the poverty. My friend informed me of a screaming limbless beggar he witnessed on the street, and he advised me not to go there; it would disturb me. I informed my friend that if this kind of life is going on in the world, I don't wish to turn a blind eye to it. I want to witness and understand it for myself, even if it is disturbing. Varanasi was lodged in my head.

It's now about eighteen months later, and since arriving here on Tuesday night, I have my own Varanasi experience to talk about. I am staying at Vishnu Rest House overlooking the river. The Ganges is littered with numerous ghats along it's nearside bank; steps leading down to the waters. Upon these steps, Indians gather amongst the holy waters. On Wednesday I began to explore. I decided to stroll south along the river. Kids play with kites as families bath in the dirty waters, believing the holy water brings purity to the living. Lines of people slap their clothes against the steps and use the waters for their washing. Lines of laundry dry in the midday sun.

However, there is little doubt at what the most interesting, fascinating, bewildering and shocking part of the Varanasi ghats is. Pockets of fire and smoke burn from the base of the Harishchandra Ghat. I knew what to expect before I arrived. By the rivers edge, deceased bodies are surrounded by logs and cremated. Relatives watch. The body I had witnessed being carried through the streets the previous day was, I presume, going to the river. Hindus believe that dying in Varanasi attains you enlightenment, and widows and the elderly therefore come to the city to live out their final days. Bodies are cremated by the river's edge; the Ganges is thought to bring salvation to the dead as well as salvation to the living.

As I sat on an upper step looking down, I was conscious and unsure of how I should act. Photography, I knew, would be treated with fierce objection, but what about mere intrigue and observation? I was comforted slightly by the number of locals watching the preceding, but were they all friends and family? Was the ceremony as public as it seemed?

I was soon approached by a man. As in all places visited by many tourists, the incentive of an approaching, confident and English speaking man is likely to be to make money from me, but nevertheless I attempted to get answers to my questions. I asked him if it was okay to observe, and he said it was fine. As we talked, a new body was brought to the river. I also asked the man about the emotions that the friends and family of the deceased were likely to be feeling; the lack of emotion on display surprised me. Obviously sadness would surely be a part of it, but was there a flip side to it? They had died in Varanasi and were being cremated in the Ganges river; This was a good thing, and they were very lucky.

Unfortunately the man failed to understand my question, but he did point out to me a nearby man dressed in white. He had shaved all the hair on his head, indicating he was a close family member in mourning. Strangely, the shaved man didn't always have his eyes fixed firmly on the cremation, and it soon became apparent that despite the emotion he must have been feeling, he was still fully alert; A cricket ball came racing towards him at lightning speed, and the man grasped it out of the air with ease. He calmly passed it back to a waiting boy. Just yards away from the burning bodies, some locals were enjoying a friendly game of India's number one sport.

After failing to get more answers from a man who just wanted to sell me cannabis, I soon moved to the next ghat. I witnessed how the jolly cricketers found nothing strange about batting their cricket ball far into the Ganges rivers by the cremations, and how they asked a possible mourner near the shore if he could swim over and retrieve the ball. I witnessed yet more bathers and washers using the water, and behind them a dog chewing a bone. It looked like a jaw bone to me. I wonder. A nearby woman soon shooed the dog away once she noticed it.

After strolling down the river, taking a rest, and being startled by a creeping-up goat, I ate some food and went looking for The Monkey Temple. I failed to find it, but when I paid a bicycle rickshaw to take me there, I realised it hadn't been worth the search. I returned to the river and strolled back north. I witnessed more cremations, more cricket and more fun kite flying. Life side by side with death.

On my second day in Varanasi I strolled north along the river. A sole man attempted to fish by the river's edge; not a catch I fancy eating. I also reached Dashaswamedh Ghat, the busiest ghat for bathers. As I walked further up the river I suddenly stopped in my tracks. For the first time I witnessed Manikarnika Ghat, a larger and more crowded funeral ghat than I saw yesterday. Huge numbers of burning wood piles littered the ground amongst the mourners. The absence of gawping tourists, however, baffled me.

My guide book informed me of what happens to the tourists who do come here; they are soon snapped up by 'wood touts' who provide lots of fascinating information about the funeral, including the apparently very high wood costs required to burn a body, and finally, how much money I would like to donate to the cause. I felt that my book was ambiguous about how genuine these people were. This happened to me instantly. I was ushered to a balcony above the funerals (he told me that only relatives are allowed to be there; information contrary to what I was told the previous day). He then told me lots of fascinating information and answered my questions:

Women can not come to the ceremony because, in the past, any woman who was at the burning of her husband would have to jump onto the fire alive.
Some deceased people, such as children and pregnant women, cannot be burned; they are taken to the centre of the river, attached to stone, and sunk.
After a body has been burning for two hours, a close family member smashes open the softened skull; releasing the soul.
Crying is forbidden at the cremations, half answering my question the previous day of why there was not as much sadness as I would have expected.

Unfortunately, the quality of the information I received was matched by the man's anger when I refused to hand him money, and I had no choice but to leave. I now understood why tourists were thin on the ground.

The rest of the day was spent strolling around more of Varanasi, but now I have other things on my mind. I once again find myself at a crossroads. I could go to Nepal, but apparently it's getting cold in the higher regions. Furthermore, I don't want to eat into too much of the time I have left to spend in South India.

Today I have been taking things easy and have been doing more research on where to go next. However, I am taking my time. I have not found Varanasi to be as bad as my friend implied. I have had no significant problems with beggars compared to other Indian places, and I have found the activity by the riverside to be nothing short of intriguing. Surprisingly, I feel very comfortable and relaxed here, and the travellers around me seem to feel the same way. Our guesthouse overlooks the riverside, but it is not a morbid scene; I see bathers, washers and many playing children. The scene is tranquil; the billowing smoke in the background becomes part of the scenery. I feel no rush.