Baptism of Fire in Varanasi
One week in Varanasi has certainly been a baptism of fire when it comes to travelling in India. The Lonely Planet describes Varanasi as “one of the most blindingly colourful, unrelentingly chaotic and unapologetically indiscreet places on earth” and I couldn’t agree more. Also known as the City of Life, Varanasi is one of Hinduism’s seven holy cities, where pilgrims come from all over to wash away their sins in the sacred waters of the Ganges or to cremate their loved ones. For Hindus it is considered a particularly favourable place to die since those that do die here are said to receive moshka – liberation from the cycle of life and death.
Varanasi is a place where the most intimate rituals of life and death take place in public, and it’s not for the faint hearted. Locals, pilgrims and tourists converge against a canvas of depth, energy and intensity. Everyday activities like crossing the street or conversing with your neighbour can end up blowing your mind, and you come to expect the unexpected at any point in time. As with any touristic sight, it also attracts the touts who are out to make a living whether it be by offering you a rickshaw tour, a boat ride on the Ganges, a photo with a holy man, a silk saree, or just begging for your spare change.
Like an onion, Varanasi has many layers and as you peel them away, there is a high probability it will result in tears. There are four layers that I’ve observed over the last week, and that I’m game enough to write about today. Within these four layers, there are an infinite number of sub-layers that, quite frankly, begin to blow my mind.
The first layer, although not the most significant, is what I would call the “Underground Layer”– behind the facade of holiness and ritual is the underground culture of bhang* eating, pot smoking and alcohol drinking locals. Although forbidden in the Hindu religion, these things happen away from the river and behind closed doors. As they say, life is all about balance, so if they are drinking alcohol in the evening, then they’re bathing in the River Ganges the next morning.
The next layer is the chaotic “Street Level” where the residents of the city collide on the roads and alleyways – pedestrians, rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, battery-rickshaws, bicycles, motorbikes, cars, cows, dogs, goats, street vendors – if they have a horn you can be sure they will be using it. Amongst this chaos, you can find cows standing calmly in the middle of the street as the traffic weaves around them, and dogs curled up sound asleep on the edge of an alleyway with motorbikes missing their bodies with a centimetre to spare. Like so many residents of Varanasi, perhaps they too have mastered the art of meditation. There are religious rituals happening 24 hours a day, many silent but many also including chanting, the ringing of bells and calls to prayer. Throw in multiple wedding processions per day (it is wedding season after all) and you’re in for an incessant cacophony of sounds that does not have an off button.
Above the chaotic streets is the competitive “Rooftop Level”… this is a whole other world where you will find pigeon trainers flying their flocks against each other all day long. If their flock is successful in bringing back a member of another flock, then the owner of the “stolen” pigeon will have to come and pay to get it back. Amongst the pigeons and their trainers, are also young boys flying kites, yogis saluting the sun, monkeys jumping through the concrete jungle and house wives hanging their washing.
And last but certainly not least, is the intense and energy-filled “Higher Level” layer. This is what drives most of the city’s residents and visiting pilgrims. Conversations around spirituality and energies are as commonplace as discussing the weather, and there is no denying their presence in the city.
Throughout these layers there are many themes that intertwine and set the stage for the religious symbolism and rituals in this holy city – mantra and tantra; consciousness over physics; the five elements of earth, water, air, fire and ether; the balance of life and death, happiness and sadness, profit and loss; earth and life being made up of liquid, solid and gas.
The heart of the holy city centres around the ghats that line the River Ganges. In the early morning, tourists take to the river in boats to watch the sun rise and subsequently light up the concrete steps, buildings and temples in vibrant colours, whereas the late afternoon twilight turns the same scene to more muted tones of pastel. A walk along the concrete stairs that line the river takes you past boat men selling trips on the river, holy men with long beards dressed in orange, believers bathing in the sacred waters (predominantly men in their loin cloth undies – any women would be fully dressed in sarees), religious ceremonies, offerings being released into the river, professional launders washing their laundry and hanging it out to dry along the steps, kids flying kites, people doing yoga and/or meditation, artists showing their work, boys playing cricket, men playing cards, beggars, street food vendors, foreigners dressed in awkward long sleeve and long pant combos in an effort to be culturally sensitive and some not-so-culturally-sensitive foreigners. Then there are the “burning ghats” where fires are burning and bodies are being cremated 24 hours a day.
Upon our first visit to the smaller of the two burning ghats, there were a few fires already burning, and two bodies on stretchers covered in gold cloth waiting in line for cremation. Following the strong Indian caste system, the cremation rituals have been managed by the same family for centuries. As we watched them transfer the first body onto its pile of wood, it was a less-than-smooth process as they lifted the body off the stretcher and struggled to lift the “dead weight” into place. The second body, which appeared to be already partially decomposed, went even less smoothly as it fell onto the side of the fire and then had to be prodded into place with a large bamboo stick. As they manoeuvred it, the head rolled out of the bag and onto the ground next to the fire. We could hardly believe our eyes, and then the cremator casually picked it up by the hair and threw it into the fire. This all happened within our first few hours of arriving in Varanasi – it was at this point we realised that we were in for an intense week!!
Although you could definitely tick off the main sights in 3-4 days, a week gave us plenty of time to be able to soak it all up and then retreat from the streets to process all that we had seen and heard every time we stepped foot out of the hotel. It was certainly an enigmatic and energy-filled place that ensured my first week in India did not disappoint!
I am now on an 18 hour train (with a current delay of 10 hours) to Rishikesh which is another magnet for spiritual seekers – a yoga haven set on the northern part of the River Ganges surrounded by forested hills. This week should be be a bit more chilled!!!
For more photos of the scenes along the River Ganges, see my gallery here.
*Bhang is an edible form of cannabis that is very popular amongst the locals. When we did a street food tour this was the first (optional) thing on the menu - basically the intention was to get the munchies and be able to enjoy as much street food as possible!!!
