Cremation is education

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After running the hot water for about 10 minutes this morning, and feeling no hot water come out, a certain feeling of resignation came over me as I knew I would have to plod down 6 flights of stairs in order to find out what new twist was preventing me from having a hot shower. I also noticed that, as the floor filled up with cold water, there were rather too many hairs of unknown provenance drifting around. This, together with the mud stains and unflushed turd, were making me suspect that just maybe no-one had cleaned my bathroom before I took the room. After having a brief uncomfortable wash in the sink, I descended to the reception to find out what was going on.

The absence of hot water was easily explained - there is a power cut in Varanasi between 8AM and 2PM so, as I had attempted to shower at 8:30AM, there had been no power available to heat the water. This bit of information would have been welcome yesterday evening when I was setting my alarm clock. The absence of cleanliness was not even questioned - the guy simply said that, when I was next in my room, he would send up the cleaning man to clean the bathroom to my specifications. I was rather hoping that my definition of a hair, turd, and mud-free bathroom was no different from anyone else's, so they could clean the room while I was out sightseeing, but he refused to even consider resolving the situation in any other way. I also repeated my request for the cistern to be fixed, and was assured it would be dealt with.

My sightseeing goal for the day was to visit all of the ghats south of the hotel. A ghat is a series of stone steps leading down to a river, in this case the Ganges, and there are about 100 ghats in Varanasi in total. Many have shrines that are worshipped on a daily basis, some only come to life at certain times of the year, and some are not given a second glance by anyone.

The ghats that hold the greatest fascination for most Westerners are the burning, or cremation, ghats. If a Hindu dies in Varanasi, it is said that they attain instant enlightenment and are freed from the cycle of birth and rebirth. Many elderly and dying people come to Varanasi in the hope of spending their final days there. There are 2 burning ghats, the most famous of which is only for Hindus, but there is a second that is for all faiths. Though photography is forbidden around these 2 ghats, there is no bar on spectators, creating a curiously public aspect to what in the West tends to be a more private ceremony.

The atmosphere at the burning ghats is not an unhappy one. Rather, there is more a sense of gladness that the dead person has achieved what they had been aspiring to. I saw no tears, though crying is frowned upon because it makes the departing soul distressed too. Yards away from the pyres, children were flying kites, people were bathing in the river, and hawkers were selling their wares.

The burning itself was not quite as voyeuristic an experience as I was expecting. The body is wrapped in an orange shroud before being placed on the wood and then the fire lit. You don't see any bare skin unless, as the body heats up, a limb flops out of the shroud - I'm told this happens but I didn't see it myself. This made it quite easy to believe that it wasn't a person that was being burned. I was also told that if a limb does become visible, the pyre tenders make sure it's stuffed back under the shroud ASAP.

I saw a second cremation at the ghat from which all faiths can be burned. One of the men who worked there, who claimed his family had been involved with the cremations for several thousand years, said that about 20 Westerners had been burned at this ghat during his tenure. I was curious as to how they scheduled the various cremations, and he explained that there is no reservation system in place. You simply turn up with a dead body and, if no pyre is available, another one is constructed. That way, no-one ever has to wait. Women don't generally attend the burnings, supposedly because they cry too much and, in the case of a wife mourning her husband, might be tempted to commit sati by diving onto the pyre.

Apart from the burning ghats, the only other ones that stood out were the dhobi ghat, where legions of washermen and washerwomen ply their trade, and Dashaswamedh Ghat, which is one of the most popular ghats amongst pilgrims because it is a so-called tirtha (or crossing place, where the world of the gods intersects with the human realm), and was bustling with masseurs and assorted trinket sellers.

Apparently this weekend there is a kite festival across all of India, and it was clear that the local children were getting in practice for this event. Walking anywhere on the ghats, you were liable to get twine wrapped round your neck from some youngster's kite. More impressive was the sheer number of people congregating on their house roofs to fly kites or just chat. Looking down from the vantage point of the hotel's roof terrace, there was an unbelievable amount of activity at roof level. I suppose this isn't hard to understand, as the streets are so narrow and dark in this part of town that getting on to the roof must provide an amazing sense of space.

The hot water saga took on another level of complexity when, at about 3:30PM, there was still no hot water available in my room. After speaking to the reception again, I was told that there was a special geyser for my room that someone needed to turn on. Sure enough, when that was turned on there was a raging torrent of hot water in my shower. Unfortunately, for reasons I didn't quite follow, they can't leave this geyser on 24/7 so every time I need hot water, I have to track down a member of staff who will then turn on the geyser. Assuming, of course, it isn't between 8AM and 2PM. Again, I'm not sure why this ever-so-critical bit of information wasn't shared with me when I checked in. Whatever, I was finally able to have a hot shower, unaccompanied by anyone else's hairs or turds. It felt good. For good measure, I reported my broken cistern for the 3rd time, and received the same assurance that it would be fixed soon.

The evening was a complete relaxation binge. I had egg and chips for dinner (which tasted as though it had come from the kitchen of the very gods themselves) accompanied by a Kingfisher, and played some pool with a couple of the other residents. I think I'm going to like this place, even though its hot water system was specifically designed to wind me up.

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Photos

Slap happy
Dhobi-wallah showing the laundry who's boss

A dry state
Laundry drying in the sun

Buffalo stance
Bath time for the livestock

Temple
Detail

Lilac time
Boats on the Ganges

Comments

[Faiser]

Mud stains? Sounds suspicious, given the state of other appliances in the bathroom.

[Jabe]

Mud stains
The stains were in the shape of shoe prints - for them not to be mud doesn't bear thinking about ...