Holy Shit! Varanasi, India

Varanasi, India
December 1, 2012
Altitude 252'

Maybe it's my second night in Varanasi and I'm walking back to my hotel through the tangled crazy maze of alleyways that makes up the Old City.  It's late and I'm beyond tired.  I've been up since 4:30 a.m. after only five hours of bad sleep, on top of a bad night before that.  My body's used to bad sleep cycles, but this one is particularly bad. I'm zigzagging my way way back to the guesthouse when I round a corner.  A straight line runs a few hundred feet. A right turn would then bring me to the hotel.  The alleyway's no more than eight feet wide and a massive bull cow is standing in the middle.  I've navigated this situation before.  The streets are full of cows.  I walk toward it.  This time the cow snorts, turns its head and threatens me.  I back off and return to the alley's entrance.

Holy Shit! I think. How am I going to get to my hotel? I stand on a raised step and wait, hoping the animal will leave. But no. Instead it sits itself down. I wait 30 minutes. Finally, an Indian on his way to the same place starts. "Hey," I tell him. "There's a cow there and he's dangerous." Probably thinks I'm a crazy tourist.

"Not dangerous," he says. "Mother India."

Mother India, I think. More like Holy Mother of God.
I take the opportunity and follow him, stepping beside yet another pile of shit.  I don't like this.  People have told me they've been shit or peed on as they've walked by.  One woman told me a cow bull-horned her butt and that she had a deep bruise.

We get past.

I'm so tired I can't sleep; I'm exhausted and it just won't come.  But I have meds, and this is the time.  I pop a 10 mg Valium and sleep through the night.

Varanasi!

I want to have respect for it.  I really do. It's been on "my list" for a very long time.  It's one of the holiest and most renowned places for pilgrimage: Varanasi or Benares, it's been considered the cultural, spiritual and religious metropolis of northern India for centuries.

In the broad context of Hinduism it's considered the city of polarities, where materialism and spirituality encounter each other in a way that cannot be explained, only experienced.

And I'm about to do that.

But it's also the filthiest city I've ever been to.  Cows roam freely.  I realize it's a cultural thing, and that the cow is the manifestation of the god Shiva.  Mother India.

Piles of poop are everywhere. I've seen piles of it decorated with marigolds.  I've seen devout Hindu women touch the dirtiest part of the tail in some form of respect.  I'm having a major clash of culture, something that doesn't normally happen to me.  Usually I flow with this sort of thing, embrace it  But this is just too bizarre.

Most  tourists stay in the Old City, close to the Ganges River, near the ghats, or steps, that lead lead down to the water.  This city's been high on my list of places to see.  It's one of the holiest cities in India and to die here, then be cremated on the banks of the Ganges, is supposed to liberate the believer from the cycle birth/death/rebirth.

Despite my response to the city, there's a still huge vitality about life on this river, but it's grotesquely dirty.  People come to it to bathe, to make puja--worshipping the river goddess Ganga; early in the morning I see men walking away from the river soaking wet.  They've just taken a "holy dip."; kids fly kites, play cricket; couples come here here to have their wedding photos taken, and because this is the marriage season, there are lots of them; people wash their clothes, brush their teeth, swim in the river; oxen are brought to the river for bathing; a hundred cows have taken up residence.  Men also use the walls banking the ghats as a place to urinate.  A walk from one end to the other--a distance of about four miles--is a lesson in learning how to navigate multiple piles of cow and oxen poo and avoided the stench of urine.  Each night there's a ceremony--more a show--where Ganga is worshipped with fire and holy music.  Through the "show" kids are hawking leaves in the shape of bowls that are filled with flowers and a small candle.  Ten rupees will buy one that you can set sail on the river--your own offering to the goddess.  Actually, watching these small offerings float down the river--and there are hundreds each evening--is quite magical.  It's about the only thing positive I can say about the place.

I want to sit and enjoy life on this vibrant river, but it's difficult.  Men approach, want to shake hands.  There's nothing friendly about this.  They want something.  they always want some ting.  In this case it's a prelude to a massage, which I've had and they're very good, but not here on the banks of this river.  I want a more relaxing place. 

I don't extend my hand.  I've gone through half a bottle of hand sanitizer in my already-short-stay in India.  I'm terrified of a sickness like I had last winter.

One guy approaches my shoulders.  "Don't touch me," I tell him.  He does.  I told you..."get your fucking hands off me."  The person I've  become is ugly. I pass beggars the same way.  I'm in defense mode.  This is not like me at all.  Something in me is snapping, turning me into someone else.  I have to remind myself that no one forced me to come here.  This is certainly not the India I dealt with in 1998.  But Varanasi, and the horrific ride getting here, is what's doing this.

That and the smell--the smell of poo and piss.  It's the filth of the river and the fact that people consider it "holy."  I'm being very judgemental.   It's the guesthouse where I'm staying and the noise the men who run the place make all day.  It's the fact that I can't sleep.  It's cows and cow shit and cow pee all over the streets of the Old City.  I've stepped in the stuff more than once and feel filthy.  It's watching people brush their teeth from the river, let their kids swim in it.  It's seeing people walk barefoot through the streets--streets that are so dirty I don't even want to walk on them with my shoes on.  I know there are perfectly nice Indians out there.  The man who sells me soda water and the man who gives me a massage are two of them.  But more often then not it's not nice people I come in contact with.

And then there are the cremations.  People come here to be cremated.  Hindus consider cremation along the Ganges to be the most propitious spot in the country. Families will save for a lifetime to buy the wood.  Families will bring their loved ones hundreds of kilometers from their homes to be burned at this spot.  It really is one of the things that makes Varanasi so famous.

There are two "burning ghats" on the river--one more auspicious than the other.  All of us are fascinated by this.  I stop to watch.  But of course in India one can never just stop and watch.  Someone approaches me.  "Burn and learn," he tells me.  "Come."  But I don't come,  of course.  There's always a scam and this one will involve big sums of money.  There are two hospices adjoining the site.  People come here to die.  NO matter what my "donation" will be it won't be enough. 

I ultimately do find a seat and sit with other tourists.  Safety in numbers.  It's a Sunday afternoon and I don't know if what I'm seeing in normal or not.  A new family comes in every five to seven minutes.  Each body is wrapped in a shroud then wrapped in another yellow covering.  Bodies are carried on bamboo stretchers that themselves are colored in saffron fabric. They approach the river, walk in, then submerge the body in the water three times. 

What I'm watching is almost post-apocalyptic.  There must be twenty cremations going on simultaneously--all at various stages.  There's nothing reverent about what I'm seeing.  Plastic bags, garbage, marigold garlands, charcoal float in the water.  Kids are running through the site flying kites.  Cows get in the way and have to be shooed out.  Indian pop-music is playing from a nearby shop.  There are huge piles of burned ash waiting to be shoveled into the river.  The place is crawling with tourists--tourists on shore and tourists on small boats in the river.  And because this is Sunday, there are larger boats full of Indians out for the afternoon.

One family--men only--finds a site, buys the wood and arranges it correctly.  Thousands of years of practice have taught Indians just how much wood is needed to completely cremate a human body.

It's extraordinarily difficult to have any emotion, yet the grief must be overwhelming.  These are human beings, they loved and are loved.  Yet to my Western eye this is just wrong.  But that's just it--my Western eye.  This is what Hindus do and Varanasi is one of the few places on the planet to witness this sort of thing.

The oldest son must light the fire but first his head is shaved bald, then he changes into mourning clothes--unbleached muslin and nothing  more.  He circles the pyre three times then starts the fire.  Then they wait.  It will take three hours for the body to burn.

Twice I see something I learn is very rare.  There are five times when a death does not permit a cremation: if someone dies my cobra bite, if a woman is pregnant, if a child is under 16, if the deceased has leprosy or his a sudhu--a holy man.  In this case the body is strapped to a stone, rowed out into the river, and dumped overboard.  I've seen small wrapped yellow bundles floating in the garbage strewn waters near shore.  I can only imagine.

Life in the "new city" of Varanasi is just a jolting, but in a different way.  The city is full of garbage and cows freely roaming the streets.  Piles of shit are everywhere there,too.  Noise levels are horrific.  Twice I take a rickshaw to the train station--5 miles away.  Just negotiating a price is a nuisance.  "200 rupees," the driver tells me.  "50," I retort back.  We end up with a price of 100--$2.00. The piercing honk of horns and the din of traffic rattle my nerves, but in a different way.  Plus, I'm more vulnerable to the hucksters--all of whom want to sell me something or put me a taxi or rickshaw.  I have a mental picture of a piece of undeveloped land piled high with garbage.  People are pouring through it.  Cows are feeding off it.  There are even two pigs in the mess.

I can only take in so much. I think this is where I snap. There are just some things in life you're not supposed to see. Actually, though, I think it started to snap when I saw man die in a motorcycle accident two weeks earlier while I was on a bus. Traffic was stopped for over an hour. Truly, there was nothing we could do, but people were snapping photos of the accident scene. Life just seemed so disposable.

It doesn't seem possible, but the city does redeems itself, somewhat, with a day visit to Sarnath--only ten miles but world's away from Varanasi.

It's one of the four most important Buddhist sites in the world.  It's here where he preached his first sermon and pilgrims from all over the world come here on what is known as the "Buddhist Circuit."  The other three are where he was born, where he achieved enlightenment and where he died. 

Sarnath is a typical Indian town, but there are no cows on the streets, no piles of poo.  There is the stench of piss--human--but that's normal.

I make way way to the 3nd century archaeological site.  It's fully enclosed, full of trees and ancient stupas and monasteries.  There are palm and bhodi trees all around. I actually hear birds chirping.  In the distance monks are chanting.  It's quiet and peaceful and cool in the shade.  There are squirrels and chipmunks and for a brief, illusory moment I think I'm in Chapultepec Park, in Mexico City.

I spend almost the entire day sitting on one of the benches--reading, writing.  I can't bare to return to Varanasi.  I'm growing increasingly anxious about India.  I hate it, and that's not normal for me.  I'm a very flexible traveller and can flow with pretty much anything, but the entry into the country coupled with the intensity of the city, is too much.

It's also December 1st, and I'm acutely aware of the date.  I'm missing home, and December, and snow and the coming of Christmas.  I'm sick of traveling, sick of India, sick of shit and piss and scams and rudeness.  I'm sick of bad hotels and sick of Indians spitting.

The words to James Taylor's song Sweet Baby James runs through my head.

Now the first of December was covered with snow

and so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston.

Though the Berkshires seemed dreamlike on account of that frosting,

with ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go.

Towards dusk I know it's time to return.  The site is closing, and I don't want to  be on these insane roads after dark in an auto- rickshaw.  But it's here that I have my own bit of enlightenment.  It's time to go  home, cut the trip short, pay whatever it is I have to pay to get back to Plattsburgh.

That night I start the ball rolling.  I send both Steve and my travel agent an email.  If I can't change my ticket, it will only cost me $700.00 to get home from Delhi by the weekend.  I don't care what it costs, I just have to get out.

Varanasi had been high on the list of "places to see," but whoever said it would take no prisoners was right.  I'd been warned. I would either love it or hate it.

Sadly, it was the later for me. I stayed four days--three days too many.  It wasn't only time to get our of Varanasi.  It was time to get out of India!