Banaras

ARRIVAL

To go to Varanasi (also called Banaras or Benares) as a Westerner is to be a cultural alien. Watching what happens in the most sacred of Hindu cities is fascinating, but also, I think, very difficult to understand for foreigners, no matter how much information the tourist touts may pour on your unwilling ears.

For us Varansi was a place where strange and hilarious things kept happening. We arrived at about nine at night after a fiasco with plane tickets that I can't bring myself to describe, but if you go to India don't book anything with Make My Trip. Varanasi airport is a long way from the centre of the city, so we got a cab and wound and jolted and swerved through a dark city. Traffic congestion in Varanasi is a problem. If there isn't a hole in the road from roadworks there is a huge cow.

Our hostel was in the Godaulia region of the old city, whose winding lanes make it impossible to get to by car. We got to an entrance to the lanes and our taxi driver dropped us on the road with the insturctions: 'that way, one minute'. This was not correct. Trying to lug a huge backpack through tiny, narrow, cobbled streets is not much fun. It's even less fun when, becasue of very active animal life in the old city, the streets are smeared with dung. Never mind, this is India.

After a couple of minutes we realised we weren't going to get anywhere so we asked for directions and what followed was a bizarre pattern of stopping, asking for directions, getting one more peice of the puzzle and then following those instructions until we were lost again.

Us (to shopkeeper): Kautilya society hostel?

Shopkeeper: straight then left, Madame.

Us (wildly gesturing): straight then left? Like this?

Shopkeeper: Yes, Madame.

And so we follow these directions only to find ourselves in another narrow alley looking for the next person to ask. The aren't street signs and maps of alleys don't seem to exist in much detail. But this manner of navigation works - although not efficiently - and a few wrong turns and forty minutes of weaving round cows and dogs and people later we found where we wanted to be. And of course we later discovered that if our driver had dropped us at the other side of Godaulia, it would have taken maybe ten minutes to get to our hostel. The thing is that you can't expect order in Varanasi.

THE GHATS

A ghat is a set of stairs leading down to a body of water. Pushkar was also full of ghats. Varanasi is the city of ghats. Hindus believe that drinking the waters of the Ganges river will cleanse from sin, particularly in Varanasi, which is one of the holiest of 'tirthas' which allow Hindus access to the gods and for the gods to communicate with people on earth. To die in Varanasi is to obtain instant moksha (enlightenment) and I also read somewhere that it's the place to die if you want to avoid the cycle of reincarnation.

Walking around the ghats it seems that there are several worlds at work here: there are pilgrims and holy men who are there for religious reasons; there are tourists who come as spectators, but don't really understand what is happening; and there are those who come to make a few rupees from both pilgrims and tourists.

The ghats are an incredible sight at whatever time of the day you are there, but sunrise is definitely the best. Always there are wooden boats sitting on the river's edge waiting for passengers and for about 200 rupees you can take one for an hour. At about 5.30 am the sun is rising and a soft grey mist is rising off the river making it look like an atmospheric painting by Turner - especially if the sun is rising blood-orange colured as it was the morning we were there.

As we splashed through the water we watched the first pilgrims of the day at their ritual ablutions. Men in dhotis submerged themselves in water, some lathering their bodies in soap, others plunging right into the river. Holy men in orange robes are everywhere and if you are not careful you'll be forced to pay for an unwanted puja mark. Learn to dodge spice-covered fingers aimed at your forehead. Women bathe in the Ganga too, but we saw fewer of them.

As a foreigner it's hard not to be slightly disgusted by the Ganga. It's heart-breakingly polluted. A film of greasy scum lies on top of everything and plastic as well as human and animal waste is very visible. And the odd body. And factories upriver are pumping heavy metals into the water. You have to ask how a holy river could be allowed to get so polluted.

But despite this the ghats are an incredible place to be. And beautiful. At 6.30 in the evening there is a huge puja ceremony on the main ghat. Witnessing it makes you feel as if you are watching something amazingly ancient. Of course many Christan rituals are just as odd and old, but familiarity makes you foget this. Maybe ten or fifteen Brahmans perform the rituals simultaneously in a cloud of inscence smoke and fire light, all of them moving and lifting burning urns and swinging inscense in time, while chanting fills the air. Hundreds of people come to these and many watch from boats.

It's traditional to light a candle in a clay pot (only pay 10-20 rupees) and float it down the river. The sight of hundred of these little yellow lights on the flat, black water is magical.

DEATH

Varsnasi's burning ghats are unusual for India in that they are right in the middle of thie city. This means that they are very visible to visitiors, who of course watch the proceedings with much curiosity and almost certainly a little voyeurism.

The first you see of the cremation groundswhen approaching along the ghats is the black smoke and then the flames. Closer you realise that the ghat is surrounded by piles and piles of wood. Funnily enough burning bodied don't smell as I expected them do, although this may be masked by incense.

Bodies on the ghat are burned on the flat parts of the steps and maybe eight cremations seem to take place at a time. As the funeral pyres are lit the grieving realations walk around the ghat - five times according to a self-appointed guide we met.

Something that never fails to amaze me in India is how every opportunity is turned into one for commerce. The guide book warned us that at he burning ghats men claiming to be woodwallahs (wallah is pretty much Hindi for 'seller' or 'vendor') would get into conversation with tourists, give a friendly description of cremation and Hindu beliefs, talk about the rising price of wood and then ask for a donation. Our guidebook is a bit outdated now, and tourists we met were asked to donate to a 'hospice'. Sure enough we hadn't been at the ghat very long before a man stood next to us and began describing everything ('body in white cloth is man, body in red cloth is woman. Is lower caste man who owns ghat but he is very rich'). The problem is that different tourists seem to be given different information, so how do you know? Someone from our hostel was told by one person that burnings we done by caste and by another that they weren't (though caste is a sensitive issue) and there seemed to be other discrepencies too. Apparently some bodies, including those of children or those bitten by cobras, are not burned but floated down the Ganges. When out on the river we saw something that we thought was a rock. When it moved we realised it was a long grey-wrapped parcel.

For me corpses hold no particular terror - after all the living are much more dangerous - but it was still a funny moment to look down the ghat and realise that the long bundles neatly wrapped in cloth had been people very recently. I think the thing is that in Varanasi death is very open. You see bodies, you watch them burn. There isn't a descreet ornamental coffin or high-tech electrical cremator standing between you and death.

Mourners at the ghats must not cry. If you cry the spirit of the loved one will not want to leave so you cannot upset the dead. Often women do not go to cremations. Yet in these very personal moments nothing is private. mourning families are only metres away from each other. Tourists wander through looking amazed. Dogs wander through looking hungry.