Varanasi - contrast of spirituality and greed.

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Varanasi was the place I'd most imagined visiting for this Indian holiday. My quintessential image of India has always been people bathing in the Ganges on the ghats (large stone stairs leading into the water); just one of those images I picked up at some stage and wanted to see for myself. Then, having read further about it, ideas like it probably being the oldest populated city in the world (Iron Age settlement, 1000 BC), being the home of learning and spirituality, etc., etc., also hooked me.

I took a hotel immediately on the river, spending the most on a room anywhere in India. I wanted a balcony with a table and chair, so I could work overlooking the river. I was given a lower room, and lacked such a vantage point, although there were views all around me. I'm unsure if this was an act of fortune or misfortune, as I might have stayed in my little perch and romanticized everything, when, in fact, I often left my room and wandered the ghats or the streets and found something less mythical.

The sight of the Ganges is superb. On the west bank are the ghats and, behind them, old palaces of various Rajas, and similar grand but somewhat dilapidated buildings. The eastern bank is a long stretch of dirt or sand, covered when the Ganges floods. The river is wide and a dusted powder blue. It's mesmerizing to sit and watch the boats make their way up and down. In the early morning and evening boats gather to watch the religious ceremonies that occur, and processions of candles drift along the waters representing individual prayers.

On the West Bank the ghats hold various sights. At sunrise and sunset (7 pm) various religious observances are held on the ghats. Tourists flood these events (more on that later). The most significant areas, I found, were the ghats for the cremation of bodies. Immense, ordered stacks of wood surround everything here, and there are pyres closer to the river consuming dead bodies. An outcast caste, I think called 'toms' (but spelt 'dom' - need to check this), handle the bodies. I stood near the flames, in the intense heat (42 degreees) and watched several bodies in various stages of destruction from the fires. It provoked several feelings, but mostly I was fascinated to think that it offered a sense of completion to the notion of a lifetime and a body being undone by a natural element. There may be something healthier to it than watching the body of a relative or a friend, concealed by a coffin, disappearing in a hole in the ground or being conveyed through a curtain hiding a crematorium's fire.

There is certainly a spiritual aspect present in Varanasi, but as a Westerner I did not try to comprehend it or engage with it. There are a number of tourists who do. Perhaps I am overly cynical, but I became tired of seeing a token Jesus type male in his mid twenties living by the homeless on the streets, or someone in khaki pants with a zoom action camera sitting cross legged by a holy man at sunrise, alternating between moments of taking pictures of the priest's singing and praying with their cameras and closing their eyes and falling into meditation themselves.

It was interesting to visit the Golden Temple, so named for the rooftops of the template made of pure gold; there's something like a tonne of it. A frenetic, almost violent sense of worship emerged. Soliders stand guard at the entrance. I was inspected and body-searched three or four times going through. You are asked to buy flowers and holy water for 10 rupees, and in the interior is a well where you pour the water out as libation and scatter the flowers.

At the front of the line into the interior of the temple, women crowded the well, wetting themselves with the water, and soldiers deciding they had taken enough time pulled them away. The women fought them off with their hands and arms, quite violently, shouting, and went back to the water until a soldier finally had enough purchase of their clothing to let someone queued behind them through.

But this is the front of Varanasi. As fascinating as it sounds, and the cremations aside, I found that beneath the veneer of the river and the spiritual aspect of the city was a tourist industry primed with greed, scams, and theft. Directly behind the river is a maze of alleyways, filthy with burning piles junk, cow feces, and flies, and filled with stalls for tourists. The streets beyond that are like many Indian cities, only there was, I thought, a sense of emptiness in them, behind the grandness of the river's buildings. I think what I love most about India is wandering the cities and getting a sense of the people, and, while I did meet some very kind and warm individuals here, they were overshadowed by the processes of tourism which glitters by the river.

It's not uncommon, for example, to be walking near a ghat and having someone shout at you 'Why are you here? Of all cities on earth; there are three hundred countries in the world. Why are here, now, at this moment? I am an astrologer' from someone who might also offer to sell you water, opium, or hashish.

Once, standing at a religious ceremony, I felt something at my hip pocket. I reached down as a group of children ran past, and thought someone had brushed me accidently. A moment later, again, I felt something, and looked down to see a child, who couldn't have been older than six or seven, with his hand retracting in the act of trying to take my wallet. I smiled, the boy was only slightly taller than my knee. Afraid at being caught, he nervously made one gesture of begging for money before backing then running away. I felt aware that somewhere in the crowd there was an adult presence watching, and turned back to the ceremony.

There is an adult culture in Varanasi which has been taught to make the most money possible from tourists. for a while I visited a less popular internet cafe, which taught networking to local students, simply to make sure that money went fairly about the area. The owner must have saw me sshing into a box in Australia, or something like that, and began to ask me how it was possible to transfer files between computers. I explained the basics of FTP and SSH/SCP to him, and thought I'd made something of a friend. Returning, he charged me outrageous prices for using my laptop there, which made some of the locals look questioningly at him when he named the price before them. I paid, but felt a small revulsion when he smiled as I gave him the money; there was something of greed about it which I did not like.

There were many such moments as the above which soured me about what was occurring at Varanasi. Nor was I the only one to notice it. I spoke with others in the hotel, etc.. Sometimes the head staff at the hotel, often quite servile with their 'yes sir' and 'no sirs' revealed a small contempt.

But, while they were outnumbered, I also had some interchanges with people which were engaging and encouraging.

I liked best sitting by the ghats and chatting with the locals. Some kids would play highly organized cricket games outside of my hotel, and were in the process of finishing their exams. Some of them studied English Literature and liked Shakespeare (they'd read Macbeth) and general Elizabethan drama, and wanted to go on and study it at University; so I kept telling them to read Marlowe, Webster, etc., and wrote down some modern authors and playwrights for them to read.

On another occasion, when I wanted to purchase a chess set, a motorcyclist drove me around Varanasi in the late morning's heat for hours. The fellow who led us to various stores selling chess sets was a swindler. The chess sets were not very good quality and were stupidly priced (I was able to make them halve the original price by simple leaving the store, without the intention of bargaining). I purchased nothing, and gave the mediator 100 rupees for his time (while he still insisted I go back and pay 15,000 rupees for a set of silver pieces I'd said many times I didn't want). The mediator took the money somewhat resentfully without a word of thanks. The motorcyclist, however, refused all money. Liking him, and sensing something worthwhile, I offered to buy him lunch, a cool drink, to at least refill his petrol tank, but he smiled and said that it was for his karma and it would be wrong to take anything.

My favourite encounter was with an 11 year old boy coming up to me while I sat at the ghat outside of my hotel. He seemed inquisitive and intelligent, and a little lost (he was carrying a large bag on one shoulder), but ran through the rehearsed script the locals take with tourists. "Where from?" "Australia, Ricky Ponting!" "First time here?" "Chapatti, me hungry". I watched him take each step in the conversation with some amusement, there was something more to his questions than a concern for money; he was studying me while he spoke. When I asked if he went to school he sadly said that it was 500 rupees to attend. When he finally did ask for money I gave him a large amount which widened his eyes. He seemed hesitant to leave, and I told him to buy food. He ran off, then turned back and waved with a delighted, excited smile. I suppose I was being a patronizing Western tourist, but at least I knew what I was, and it led to a good outcome. I probably needed theinteraction as much as the child did.

For other travelers, I'd recommend the German Bakery, the Mona Lisa cafe, but also the Shanti Restaurant for internet access and quite escape. The Shanti is not listed in the Lonely Planet, and is for Japanese travelers; it's cool, the internet is good, the owner very pleasant, and it's a good place to take a break from the streets.

Varanasi was my least favourite place, I think, but it was one I had to pass though. I couldn't comprehend the spirituality there, and, perhaps for that reason, beneath the prettiest of ancient facades lay the tourist machine primed for whatever it could manipulate from its visitors. But I know that I didn't comprehend its best aspects, and found, at least, some redeeming qualities about it.

To any Indian readers I might have, I apologize if I have sounded overly critical of my experience here. I admit that I have not understood the finest aspects of the city. I hope, at least, I gained some sense of its best aspects in the positive experiences I did have.

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