घुमक्कड़ साथी

The River of Life — and Death

VARANASI’S MAGICAL CORRIDORS AND STEPS TO THE HOLIEST RIVER IN INDIA

Floating on the wooden rowboat we’ve rented for the hour, I wonder aloud how long it would’ve taken the water we saw flowing through the Ganges in Rishikesh last month to reach this very stretch of holy river on Varanasi’s own godly banks. The river here is tamer and slower but no less sacred, every curve of this 2,000 kilometre waterway a divine incarnation of the Hindu goddess Ganga and worshipped all along its south-bound path from the Himalayas through northern India.

The Ganges is life — and death — itself to the people living on its shores. According to 5,000-year-old Vedic scripture, it flowed from the heavens, breaking its fall to earth through Shiva’s locks of hair, before reaching the netherworld beneath the ocean. Embodying heaven, earth, and the afterlife, the Ganges’ rich religious symbolism meets the utility of everyday life here in Varanasi where it is both bathtub and burial ground.

We wake at sunrise to dusky, pinkish hues and the sound of water splashing beneath our hotel balcony. Boys in their underwear leap from the ghats, stone staircases lining the banks, into greenish water of dubious cleanliness. Nearby, older men tighten the knots of their loincloths after washing themselves on steps sunken below water. Meters upon meters of saris and hotel linens, discernible in their telltale whites, are neatly draped across the ghats’ walkways, freshly river-washed at dawn and waiting to dry in the day’s relentless sun.

A short walk in either direction from here takes us to one of the two ‘burning ghats’, cremation sites for dozens of blessed Hindu bodies every day. Joining Varanasi’s Ganges at death is believed to grant an automatic passage to the heavens and liberation from endless re-incarnation. If you aren’t fortunate enough to actually pass away in Varanasi, having your body transported here for cremation is second best and equally auspicious, the resultant ashes sprinkled straight into the Ganges.

Sitting at the yogurt stand, a small pack of men carrying a bamboo stretcher passes me by on the way to the burning ghat. Its deceased parcel appears long and thin underneath an orange cloth garlanded with gold tinsel, a traditional burial covering. Later, I have to walk through the riverside crematorium from the yogurt stand to reach our hotel and I notice discarded orange and gold-tinseled cloths being used like refuse bags by the neon-vested rubbish collectors fishing plastic bottles out of the river. It’s a rare and untimely display of recycling.

I realise that the dead have no use for our material world, but I expected more reverence, or a more sanctified space for souls to unite with Mother Ganga. Instead, very loud and very bad techno is blaring from speakers set up near the 2-story firewood pile and clusters of men sit around spitting vats of blood-red betel saliva. Women appear to be altogether unallowed at the burning ghat, or (perhaps more sensibly) just disinterested. There are no tears, no praying, not even thoughtful, melodic humming to mark this final stage in family members’ existences. I can see what looks like a femur through the flames.

Cows, whose population here rivals humans, aren’t afforded the same rituals in death. Instead, they’re weighted and tossed into the river to be forgotten, except the one I see floating now past the tourists in rowboats, its left horn sticking out of the surface in salute. In life, they casually roam Varanasi’s narrow, labyrinthine alleyways, competing with dogs, humans and motorcycles for their share of pedestrian space that’s often no wider than my outstretched arms.

Losing yourself in these corridors is one of the city’s most magical charms. Buildings as old as time, painted and re-painted over the centuries, close in over lanes of incense shops, barbers, beggars, and snake charmers. Holy temples and Shiva lingams crop up in every nook and cranny, even inside an old bake shop. Their shady walls help to beat the midday heat and shelter the thousands of barefoot pilgrims that meander through Varanasi’s streets. Cupping fragrant floral offerings in their hands, people queue for hours outside of some of India’s holiest shrines, places believed to have been blessed by the god Shiva himself.

By nightfall, these thousands of devotees along with ash-covered and dreadlocked holy men migrate to Dashashwamedh Ghat, said to be this very old city’s oldest, for aarti. A nightly prayer ritual, Ganga aarti is a fire ceremony to honour the river goddess and, in addition to Varanasi, is performed in India’s other holy river towns in Rishikesh and nearby Haridwar. What Varanasi’s version lacks in spiritual intimacy, it makes up for in sheer spectacle. Haunting and beautiful bhajans, like hymns, resonate across the water while seven young, honourable, brahmin men ring bells on tall platforms, and perform offerings of incense, camphor candles and lamps of burning ghee. Cows sleep curled up on steps nearby while hundreds of old, splintery wooden boats full of foreign and Indian tourists gather like a great flotilla to watch from the river’s edge.

When it’s all over, the bhajans sung and the flames distinguished and we are back on our hotel rooftop, all you can hear is the faint purring of boat motors ushering people home. Ours, along with all of the other candle offerings, dot the river’s blackness and float south with everything else this river has been given. Tomorrow we leave India but not without the energy and magic that India’s holy rivers, fascinating people, and rich culture have given us in return.

-by Kate Snyder