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Published: March 9th 2009
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Whilst waiting for our train on Platform 2 out of Agra, another arrived on Platform 3 behind us to a complete mele. Everyone rushed and jumped on to the still moving train, like squeezing a cork into a champagne bottle. Three women getting off were squeezed through a mangle of peopleAnd blown out like laughing chaff. Well, they appeared to be laughing, as others, still wanting to get on, were launching their bundles, followed by themselves through the emergency exit window, in order to get at least a seat for the long journey to wherever they were going.
We arrived in Varanasi and so to our hotel and room with balcony overlooking the sacred Ganga ( Ganges). I say balcony as it was more a cage on the side of a building, not as a means to prevent children from dropping some 40 feet to the stones below but more to keep the marauding monkeys at bay. At 5.30 the following morning our alarm went to enable us to find a boatman for the dawn river trip. As we went upstream first we witnessed greetings to the sun with bells, gongs, conches and fire, group yoga, buffalo washing, dhobi washing
and bathing plus the 7 am Ganga ceremony all in the cool of the misty morning as the sun rose like it did in Agra, through the low misty smog. At one of the burning ghats ( stone steps on the bank of the river) where the dead are ceremoniously cremated and cast into the sacred waters, men were sifting through charcoal and ashes, letting the former float away on the water and panning the latter for remnants of molten golden jewellery.
This long south to north flowing meander in the river maybe 200 yards wide now but will fill out to possibly 4 times that in the monsoon to cover what appears to be a desert, a silver sanded riverbed where gatherings happen and herds of water buffalo traverse on a daily basis to their bath in the green Ganga. And green it is. Sacred it may be but with little, if any, dissolved oxygen, few, if any, fish survive, almost certainly because of the pollution. Not that one can walk on the water but water for safe bathing should have fewer than 500 faecal bacteria per 100ml of water, the Ganga has 3000 times that amount! Boats
still float and our man with the usual speech impediment effortlessly, or rather without effort, as a means to extend the time, rowed us with all the other boats, taking advantage of the back eddies on the western bank, upstream. The usual speech impediment is actually annoying more than anything. The locals constantly spit, usually to gob out the remnants of their betel nut and stuff, the stuff that makes their teeth and lips go red, and the pavement, as they spit it out. As for speech, the best description I can give is, try speaking with a mouthful of water. The end result is close to speaking to the dentist while he is working but with a Hindi accent. Handing over our 200Rs we thanked him, his reply Na’ashi - possibly Namaste but for all we knew it could have been an insult.
Later in the day we walked the length of the ghats, taking us in close proximity to the virtually magnetic cremation ghat, Harishchandra. It is forbidden to take photographs of a ceremony and I certainly had no requirement to do so. To walk past and not at least be drawn to look at it, is
nigh on impossible. A little further on however was a somewhat different scene. In the middle of the paved section of the ghat lay a customary gold shrouded body on its stretcher for bearing it to the funeral pyre. At its head was a much animated, grieving, teenage son, moaning, crying and berating the world for the death of his father, that he had nothing left and appealed for any financial assistance we could offer. All done with sincerity. And he didn’t smirk once. Very much an actor, though a tad over the top and to our minds, a pretty sick scam. Oddly the body was still there on our return, the teenager having been replaced with a piece of card which read “ Please donat money” We did however laugh, as did the locals.
Our return trip saw a little more, where there were a group of local lads standing watching from where we were, so we thought it was alright to do likewise. One pyre was well down to glowing embers but another was ignited as we stood, the body under bundles of brush and twigs. There was another grouped round a gold shrouded body on
its stretcher by the river’s edge. There appeared to be something of a ceremony as each gold shroud was removed and discarded one after the other. We didn’t wait to see the final one, if indeed it was removed, or to see the content being placed upon the carefully weighed (for cost) and piled ( for efficiency) logs and sticks. This became apparent when we came upon the more important cremation ghat were, on a stone plinth, a pyre was well on its way with a charred skull sleeping under its final blanket of wood and flame. Macabre but magnetic. All this, in such contrast to the bright colours, loud sounds and the ever omnipresent detritus.
The bright colours have been recently added to by the impending festival of Holi, the first full moon in March. Leading up to it hands full of coloured dye or coloured water bombs are thrown at all and sundry some emerging for an evening’s entertainment, head to toe in red, purple and blue powder or steeped in similar coloured ink. We look forward to it with increasing trepidation as tourists are often specifically targeted in fun!
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