I don’t know where to start.
The beginning I suppose.
Got up at 5.45am for the sunrise (just in case all you thought I ever did was eat curries and lie in) and went on the early morning row boat with guide and boatman.
I have probably taken more pictures of the sun rising on the Ganges than I have taken of anything else. Truly serene, grand and peaceful. A blissful juxtaposition with the ghats, on which all life and all death is lived in full sound and in full colour.
It is safe to say in my experience, like other topographically unique cities in the world, and the people that make those cities – New York, San Francisco and Venice in particular, Varanasi is in that
league. It is that amazing.
Everyday life is brought to the sacred river and given meaning and value by it and through it. According to Hindus, Varanasi is one of the sacred places on earth where, if you die here, you will immediately achieve enlightenment and never need to be reincarnated. Hence, whenever anyone has any money in India, they buy a place in Varanasi so that when they are too old and infirm, they can come here to die. Not only that, everyone in India has a ghat connected with their town or to their caste or to their family and so all Indians at some point in their life come here for pilgrimage.
And the list of what I have experienced today is too numerous for this space, but the top three which I will never forget would be the dozen or so smoking or blazing pyres with bandaged bodies being cremated on the river bank whilst other gold enwrapped, flower festooned bodies were being
brought for burning on the shoulders of chanting mourners; the ritual washing at the start and at the end of the day by people like you and me, who then come out of the river, get dressed and head to work; the absolutely multiple usage of the water and the horrendous implications of that, from washing in it and drinking it to cleaning oxen and washing away unburnt body parts and ashes into
it.
All that can be experienced in life and in death is experienced on the Ghats. I don’t think there is another place on earth like it.
Let me know if you can think of one.
xx
The beginning I suppose.
Got up at 5.45am for the sunrise (just in case all you thought I ever did was eat curries and lie in) and went on the early morning row boat with guide and boatman.
I have probably taken more pictures of the sun rising on the Ganges than I have taken of anything else. Truly serene, grand and peaceful. A blissful juxtaposition with the ghats, on which all life and all death is lived in full sound and in full colour.
It is safe to say in my experience, like other topographically unique cities in the world, and the people that make those cities – New York, San Francisco and Venice in particular, Varanasi is in that
league. It is that amazing.
Everyday life is brought to the sacred river and given meaning and value by it and through it. According to Hindus, Varanasi is one of the sacred places on earth where, if you die here, you will immediately achieve enlightenment and never need to be reincarnated. Hence, whenever anyone has any money in India, they buy a place in Varanasi so that when they are too old and infirm, they can come here to die. Not only that, everyone in India has a ghat connected with their town or to their caste or to their family and so all Indians at some point in their life come here for pilgrimage.
And the list of what I have experienced today is too numerous for this space, but the top three which I will never forget would be the dozen or so smoking or blazing pyres with bandaged bodies being cremated on the river bank whilst other gold enwrapped, flower festooned bodies were being
brought for burning on the shoulders of chanting mourners; the ritual washing at the start and at the end of the day by people like you and me, who then come out of the river, get dressed and head to work; the absolutely multiple usage of the water and the horrendous implications of that, from washing in it and drinking it to cleaning oxen and washing away unburnt body parts and ashes into
it.
All that can be experienced in life and in death is experienced on the Ghats. I don’t think there is another place on earth like it.
Let me know if you can think of one.
xx
Dawn on the Ganges
Sunrise on the Ganges
Sunlight on the Ganges
Morning bathers on the Ghats
Varanasi Junior Cricketers on the Ghats
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