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After a laboured 30 hour train journey, my travel through India reached a most auspicious location. In the minds and hearts of Hindus - Varanasi (Benaras) - is an important place for pilgrims from around India and the world to bathe in the sacred Ganges river.
Every morning, as the sun's red glowing disc rises, Varanasi emerges from the mists and reveals silhouetted figures of countless pilgrims who, in their own way, provided numerous vignettes of life itself. People would eat, bathe, clean clothes, and pray along the river frontage. The whole river-side was a continuous ribbon of activity, which starkly contrasted to the expansive slow-flowing river just a few meters away.
The best way to see Varanasi and the steep ghats (steps) leading to it is by boat. I took an early morning three hour boat cruise and had a stunning view (and some fabulous photographs) of the activities on the riverbank. Women would sit together in circles, singing and clapping, lightning candles, and burning incense. Sadhus (holy men) would sit alone, eyes closed and contemplating higher callings. Many others would stand waist-deep in water, praying, pouring libations or immersing themselves with great vigour. Even at night, the Ganges also retained that serene quality, for the lighted candles which were placed in the water, would brighten an otherwise dark expanse as they gently flowed down the river.
Perhaps the most intriguing part of Varanasi though, are the burning ghats, where bodies are cremated in public. During the boat ride, we silently passed the major burning ghat, Manikarnika, and its triple storied building towered above us, it facade blackened by centuries of countless cremations. Surrounding this ghat were piles of wood, many metres high - both on the shore and in boats - all waiting to be used on yet another sacred service by the river.
Not everyone is entitled to be cremated in this way. Even if you can afford the 4,000 rupee fee (about AUD$120), there are certain categories of people who cannot be cremated: children under 12, sadhus, those bitten by a cobra, pregnant women, and people who died from smallpox or leprosy. The deceased who are unable to be cremated are taken to the centre of the Ganges, weighted down and sent to the bottom of the holy river. It is not uncommon to see dead bodies suddenly appear at the river's surface when the weights have fallen away - but fortunately, I did not witness such an occurrence, though I did see a dead holy cow bobbing along the river at one stage.
Public cremation is a quite a complex process. Firstly, the body is carried through the streets on a stretcher covered with various adornments. It is then immersed in the Ganges, and a pyre of wood is assembled. The body is placed upon this pyre and is topped with offerings, including sandalwood - which prevents an unpleasant odour emitting from the fire. Then the eldest son (or father or uncle) bathes in the Ganges, shaves his head, dons white robes, and after five clockwise circumambulations (for earth, air, water, fire and spirit) the whole pyre is lit by using liberal amounts of ghee as an accelerant. The body takes about three hours to burn and is a strictly male affair. When I asked a local as to why women are not permitted to attend, the reason given in his curt response was that women "wail too much."
A human body takes about three hours to burn, and I would have to say it was not as gruesome as I had first imagined - especially considering some of the atrocious looking beggars I'd seen lately. Viewing bony charred legs protruding from the fire was not that unpleasant, however, when the workers had to start crushing the bones in order to fully combust the body - well, this was another matter. At one stage, a burning ghat worker would raise the blackened skull from the smouldering fires, whilst another smashed it several times with a massive pole. The sight of a human skull been treated in such was a fraction discomforting - for even a blackened human skull still retains a lifelike quality.
However, the scene which best describes Varanasi occurred when I was talking to two other travellers from Lithuania and France. I gazed out on the murky morning and espied an old wooden rowing boat in the distance. The haze of a mid-morning meant that the horizon was not visible, and I could not discern where the water finished and the sky began. The boat appeared to be floating in a mysterious blue-grey ether and it provided a potent symbol of Varanasi - where a holy river meets the sky, where earth touches heaven, and where pilgrims connect with their God.
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