to Varanasi

Varanasi starts with a train journey. Through the bubbling confusion in the rainy Delhi night, arriving at the platforms packed with dark faces, scarves knotted around heads and necks, parcel wallahs yelling watch out coming through with their carts laden with packages, I am ripped off by my baggage wallah, and to add further insult to the extortion taken to the wrong platform, but my gut feelings were crying out loudly and i soon enough found the right one, the train however arrived on time, through the sea of people streaming to the carriages the luggage is finally stowed, bunk claimed and all is calm, where i quietly munch on delicious indian gooseberries- bound to be packed with antioxidants. The inspector shows up and spends a long time looking at my ticket, checking his sheaf of papers, again my ticket, i am confident i have the right train and ticket, so i wonder what is going on, then finally telling me with a stern look to come down from my bunk..."congratulations Sir, you have been upgraded to first class" he says, well its just like monopoly i think and so off i go to the next carriage, a peaceful 4 bunk room, aircon, softer bunks, my companions an Indian interpreter at a Japanese embassy and a drunk over talkative Mauritian-Indian off to meet his guru, and by the sounds of it get drunk with him in Varanassi, coming here every 2 years to do puja at the burning ghats. He offers me his 5 hour old Wimpy grease ball fries and his rum, to which i decline, but thankfully soon enough he is unconscious and snoring and i am left to my typing and my new wonderful indian music. The second time thru Delhi I realise it does have good and cheap shopping compared to all the other places so far visited. I am buying alot of the impossible to come in the west indian classical music and it is wonderful, diverse, spiritual, sad, longing and well produced, sitar and tabla....

More will come here i am sure but for now a prayer:

Ganga Puja in Varanasi
May we offer this prayer to Ganga, the divine mother and wave the festal lamp before her; may we glorify her who delivers us from the cycle of transmigration and the ocean of this world as if she were a steady boat.
You are born of he lotus-feet of Vishnu and are famous as a stream of unpolluted water. You are Brahma in a streaming, flowing form brought to earth by Bhagiratha, sacred and a repository of all virtues.
Shiva?s locks are as it were your bower of bliss where you enjoy roaming about; you are the destroyer of all the three kinds of afflictions, physical, mental and providential, deliverer of the sons of Sagara and redresser of all sins.
He who chants your name even from a long distance is instantaneously rewarded with great comfort and pleasure and attains deliverance as well.
Just a few drops of your holy stream sanctify the bones of the dead, who touching them, go straight to heaven.
The countless creature that live in the water or on land, the innumerable birds, cattle, insects as well as the trees growing on your banks are all entitled to salvation (by their association with you).
O compassionate goddess, be kind to the poor and the destitute and revealing to them the lotus-feet of the Lord, lift the veil of delusion which covers their conscience.