In Varanasi - everything really IS possible

It has been said that being in Varanasi is like being in a permanent trip. It like scuba diving where all that might be possible in the manifestation of life parades past in spectacular beauty and surprise, and what’s more it is in a magical timewarp, a city where the cycle rickshaws outnumber all the other traffic, and river and sun hold sway, as they might at any time in human history. Varanasi is certainly the pinnacle of every place i have travelled to date, and a complete Indian experience, one I think I have been waiting for.. I am lucky the cold himalayan weather forced my life this way, just as 2 years ago in Goa weather pushed me in equally wondrous directions ;).

Dawn, as the sun rises over the distant tree line, lighting the large dunes on the east bank, then the river proper, it reflects into my balcony in a 500 year old Haveli over looking the serenity. I walk to the river side and take a row boat down the river for an hour, it is very peaceful, just the slap of the oars, and the larger tourist boats being attacked by hawker boats, selling candles for prayers, like magpies attack a hawk, never giving up.

The ghat life comes alive with the sun, as it is first seen above the horizon, a loud ringing of all the ghat temple bells begins until it is fully risen, in beautiful red-sun-orange...to the beautiful golden sound of bells and cheers. At the burning ghats the morning fog mixes with the funeral smoke, ash falls gently if you stand close, next to the pyres are giant piles of wood from forests unknown and undoubtedly depleting...i ask one man what will you do when the forests are gone, and receive an uncomprehending look. The fire used to light the pyres is 5000 years old, tended by small men in adjacent domed buildings, and there is the hospice where the frail and wasted dying men and women are brought for their last few hours or days. I tell one ghat side man of my profession and am quickly offered a visit, but i decline, feeling that i would be but a gora tourist to those spending their last hours praying for a worthwhile reincarnation.

If u turn your back for one minute with your door open, a monkey will snatch anything resembling fruit, be it edible or otherwise and be out in a flash...so far its monkeys 2, me one...in another flash of reality a monkey is violently electrocuted in the alley streets late at night, grabbing a live wire.

The old city is a wondrous labyrinth of small streets and cobbled laneways, with many small neighborhood temples, riots of color and noise, silk merchants, fruit carts, shiny silver rickshaws, hawkers, sweet shops, yoga centres, paan sellers, music schools, water buffalo, mangy dogs, and of course cows. Jodhpur had asthetics of magical light, but Varanasi has the mysticism, a surprise around every corner, and too many laneways to explore in a week. The ghats stretch 5 km of so in length and the laneways run crisscrossing in parallel. During one day I visit the amazing silk factories, in the muslim quarter, the silk caste in dark homes, day by day dyeing and weaving the gossamer thread into beautiful forms.

Today I went to Surnath, 10km away, one of the 4 holiest Buddhist sites in India, the place of Buddha’s first teaching. It is a wonderful place, the new temple is filled with incredible Japanese Buddhist murals from the 1930’s, the old stupa is on the web site 2000 years old…

more on Surnath

At sunset scores of boats plough the great rivers mirrored water, hundreds of candles are released into the water midstream and float like fireflys as the incredible sunset puja spectacle gets under way. Where else in the world does a stream of candles float downstream to celebrate life and manifest prayers? Each evening the ghat steps are filled with ceremony, bells ringing in the temples and at the ghat step stages, the central attraction at the waters edge, a stage like area with small platforms is where 6 beautifully dressed priests in gold and saffron robes perform the ceremony at sunset. Another night a music festival, outrageous beats from traditional Indian musicians at a special showcase concert.

It is not just water that flows down this river, but life itself, I have seen bigger rivers, but none that carry such a lifeforce along its banks, the force of the human spirit, Siddarthra, the deep religious complexity, and the deep personal meditation on the non existence of the self, here no one cares who u are or what you are, and one can get on with the business of self examination...

I go to the waters edge and collect a small candle burning in a wax paper cup, place it on a larger plate filled with rose and marigold petals, saying my prayers for my loved ones, it is sent down the river Ganges, holy river.

Boys launch small paper kites that float in the seemingly breathless air, they let out the string for up to a mile downwind, then fight with any competitors in the air, the kites flit like peculiar dragonflies. I sit on the ghat steps with wondeful peppery masala chai, watching the hordes of passers by, pilgrims, sadhu's, musicians, vendors, young indian men everywhere, a boy with a chained monkey, pet goats that are washed daily in the ganga, a rich mix of tourists and travellers, as it is sunday there are cricket games at every ghat, i talk with a boat boy- to find to my surprise that despite his 4 foot height he is 14 years old, a sad reminder of the fact that up to 70% of indian children suffer some form of malnutrition, including that of growth retardation (recent WHO figures).

So tomorrow i leave Varinasi for a 20 hour trip to Rishikesh, the river and the mother mountains... the Himalaya's!... but for sure I will return, there are many trippy lifetimes here yet to experience.