Varanasi at Diwali.

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Well, well, well.

How to describe Varanasi at Diwali? It's a pretty difficult task, as so much is going on that the brain can hardly process the information fast enough to register it properly. It's one big, colour-filled stream of experience into which you slip in and crawl out. It also makes you realise that you are not some independant little island, but part of a seething, breathing, ever-evolving, evr-changing universe filled with differnt people, animals and types of existence. Kind of. Ish. If only it was as simple as that, even though it really is...

We settled into a place on the banks of the holy Ganges in Varanasi a couple of days before Diwali, then went for a stroll in a shopping street filled with thousands of people buying brightly coulored things to festoon their houses with for Diwali.

We were sitting in a restaurant having a break from the crush, sipping a cold drink when who should walk in but our mate Johnny from London!!

We knew he was in India, but e-mail contact was not working, so we had abandoned plans to meet up. And as always seems to be the way in India, just when you think all is lost, the universe smiles on you and blesses you with it's goodness. Call it coincidence or synchronicity, it doesn't really matter...but it's all good karma.

Happily enough Johnny had brought a bottles of Tequila and Triple Sec from duty free to help us celebrate our engagement, so the night before Diwali Helen, Johnny, me and a Sanjay (a new friend of Johnny's he met in Varanasi, but from London too) got thouroughly smashed out of our skulls on Margaritas. A very strange experience in a holy city that is usually 'dry'.

Staggering back past the burning ghats was very weird, stumbling around along the ghats past all manner of things going on.

Once we'd recoverd from a bitch-arse hangover, we we're ready for Diwali, or so we thought. We started the evening with a boat ride on the Ganges, floating candles onto the river and sebding wishes with then into the blackness of the water and the sky.

Along the river bank thousands of candles illuminated the power-blackout darkness of the city, a hauntingly beautiful sight that I'll remember forever.

As the evening wore on, we retired to the roof og Johnny's guesthouse in the old city. Soon the whole city turned into a series of loud explosions. Millions of firecrackers and fireworks were going off everywhere, an unbeleivable noise and spectacle. This carried on all night.

Our rickshaw journey through this gunpowder fuelled carnage was a tad trying, to say the least. Helen was a shaking and quivering wreck by the time we got home. And that's not being melodramatic, just honest.

Kids were throwing rockets across the streets, and rolling bunches of firecrackers under our rickshaw as we went past. Yeah, well done kid...really funny!

Luckily I'd burned some of Himachal's finest relaxant, and was not too spooked my the prospect of my feet being set on fire by a 4 year old with a bag of poorly made fireworks and a bad sense of humour.

I wonder how many kids were injured that night....who knows?

So, to finish this entry, here is my Joycesque version of a walk through Varanasi old town:

Cows with garlands, peole swarimg everyhere, rats chasing cats being chased by dogs, puppies suckling as bikes wizz past an inch away, rubbish, faces, faeces, human gridlock in alleyways, muslims, hindus, saddhus, temples in houses, houses in temples, food, tea, children following you, silent.

Cars, rickshaws, bikes, horses, mopeds, bicycles, people with sticks beating the unruly back, sitars, drums, wailing, flaying, flayling, praying, sitting, smoking, buyinh, sxelling, going. Whispers in ears as passing by, unwanted drum wallahs who never say die, incense burning, pages turning in the book of life for another year has passed.

When you realise that we are all pasrt on one indivisible whole, you realize that the boundaries between us are illusions as thin as paper and yet sometimes as strong as stone.

Thanks for the lesson.

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Photos

Johnny and Helen by the Ganges
Sometimes the best meetings with old friend anre unplanned...and involve Tequilla.

Comments

[quintessential]

That is a very nice Narration !
Hi, that is a very quick and nice narration about the City I liked most ! Oh My.. you are so lucky to be in india during the most unruly, yet THE MOST colourful and exhibitive of Indian Festivals, DIWALI. YES varanasi is another "24/7/365 days live city" as expressed by another European traveller .. next only to NY ! i really don't know...! But DIWALI is same everywhere in India ! colurful.. lighting.. sweets.. fire-crakers.. loud noisy night.. fire accidents.. and deaths.. ! :)