Varanasi… where do you even start? It’s reputation proceeds it of course, but this place really is the one that deserves all of what you hear. The explosion of (cliché alert) sights, smells and sensations of this ancient and unutterably sacred place. In short, this place gots mad vibes.
When we first got off our train Banaras, it wasn’t much of a culture shock compared with Kolkata. The typical sight of Indian urban sprawl greeted us at the station exit: dust, tuk tuks, steadily gazing eyes and the standard array of livestock were all present. In fact, as we rocked up to the guesthouse (250rs per night - no window) I didn’t have high expectations for our visit to the ghats the next morning. The city seems to be bursting at the seems - it truly is insanely compacted - people upon people upon traffic upon traffic upon cows. It’s mental and I can’t visualise that the famous Ghats of the Ganga are going to be much different.
How great it is to be so wrong. The tendrils of the holy river wind around the edges of the city, casting a mist of pastel-coloured tranquility. We reach the ghats and hit what feels like a physical wall of quiet. No crowds, no horns, no shouting. The calm is punctuated just twice per day. Our guesthouse owner Lala (“sign my book!”) took us back down to Dashashwamedh ghat, which explodes into action each evening with an enormous, multi-sensory Puja: smoke, mantras, music, blinging costumes, dancing, CDs for sale (obvs) all amid massive crowds of Hindu pilgrams from every corner of the country. It is electric. Chaotic. Unfathomable. Joyous. Bloody loud.
As for the funeral pyres, I’m not sure how I can even begin to explain. Varanasi is the Hindus’ holiest city. It is where thousands and thousands of people come to die each year, in the belief that being cremated by the Ganga will free them from the eternal cycle of life, death and reincarnation. Witnessing death in it’s most raw and honest form; the treatment of the bodies; the attitudes of the families who come here to say goodbye… I’ll never be able to do it justice. All I can say is that I now see how wrong we in the West have our attitude to death. It gets quietly hidden it away- hushed - an unseen bogieman in the dark. The Indian style is looking death full-on the face, along with a lot of shouting, outpouring of emotion, dancing, fire and celebration. I for one know what I’d prefer.
This has been a long one. So I’ll stop now. You’ll have to take my word for it on this one: GO to Varanasi. It’ll be one of the most enlightening things you ever do.