was as long-winded
and tedious as the outward trip. In addition to bicycles, tuk-tuks and rickshaws
there were now Saraswatis complicating the traffic flow. Saraswati is the goddess
of knowledge, music, arts and science, and as it was her festival groups of
students were pushing, dragging or driving Saraswatis down to the Ganges on
more or less elaborate carts. Every so often they would stop, regardless of the
traffic, bang their drums, blow their whistles and chant. When moving, a sound
system would belt out whatever that group fancied, anything from sacred music
to hip hop.
Varanasi was founded around 1200 BC and claims to be one of
the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. For most of the last
three thousand years its citizens have been busy not improving the infrastructure, so getting back into the centre from
At one point we were stationary beside a 4x4 full of
mourners heading for the cremation ghat. The deceased lay on the roof-rack
wrapped in an orange cloth.
We were now in a pedestrianised area, but the Saraswatis
continued to drum and hip hop, motor scooters and tuk-tuks pushed past, some
drivers repeatedly thumbing the horn, others just holding the button down. It
is not always the largest vehicles that have the loudest horns. Cycle rickshaws
slipped more quietly through the crowd. A bell rings and a front wheel appears
at your elbow, then the handlebars. What follows is four times wider, so a wise
walker shoves swiftly sideways into the crowd.
We reached the river between the Arti ceremony platform and
the cremation ghat. Part of the crowd jostled for position to watch the
ceremony from the land, while boatman touted their services to those wishing to
watch from the river. Ajay hired a boat, we bought offerings for Mother Ganga
from a small girl, and then the three of us clambered aboard. As we pushed off
the noise and glare were temporally swallowed up by the quiet darkness of the
river.
The boatman was small, skinny and elderly and I felt guilty
about letting him do the rowing. We slid almost silently across the water before
turning to face the ghat where the funeral pyres burned, their orange flames
lighting up the darkness.
We attempted to launch our gifts for Mother Ganga, palm leaf
bowls holding a twist of saffron coloured flowers and a candle. We could see
the twinkling lights of other people’s offerings floating downstream, but the
boat was high sided and as we leaned over the candles tumbled off and were
promptly extinguished.
The Arti ceremony was now in full swing, the ghat thronged
with people. We were rowed across to join the flotilla of small boats bobbing
just offshore. Seven young priests in loose shirts and baggy trousers lit their
Arti lamps, cupped their hands over the flames and then raised them to their
foreheads passing a blessing from the deity to the priest. Incense is burned, the smoke passing over the flames and enveloping the whole gathering in the
divine form. The ceremony, performed every evening, is a piece of theatre as well
as a religious act.
A boat filled with young men and with Saraswati standing upright
in the stern bumped gently into the crowd. Tradition demands that the image is
offered to the river, but I was surprised by the how casually she was shoved
overboard.
As the Arti came to its conclusion we returned to the shore and
watch the final moments from the landward side.
 |
| The arti ceremony comes to its close, Varanasi |
I do not know if there really is a god for them to
communicate with, but as the music, incense and lights worked their magic, the
temporary suspension of disbelief was simple.
 |
| The other boats come ashore behind us, Varanasi |
We walked back to the car through quieter streets and drove
to our hotel in relative tranquillity.
Our hotel was at the opposite end of the ghats where the
steps take a right angle turn away from the river. Perched on top, between the
Ganges View Hotel and the river is a restaurant, and that was where we went for
dinner. Varanasi is a stop on what was once called the ‘hippie trail’, and we
had seen a few ‘unusual’ westerners about town. This restaurant turned out to be
where they gather. The food was cheap, vegetarian and wholesome enough but
bland, not just by the standards of India, but by any standard.
As we retired to bed the last of the Saraswatis was making
her way past, with agonising slowness and a regrettable taste in overloud
music. Eventually the sound of rappers faded into the night and we slept.
19-Feb-2013
Ajay arrived early next morning and at 6 o’clock we set out
to retrace our steps back to the centre.
 |
| Throught the quieter morning streets, Varanasi |
The chilly morning was quiet, almost peaceful, at least until
we reached the ghats which were almost as busy as the night before.
 |
| Lynne arrives at the river, Varanasi |
The boatmen were still busily looking for custom while fortune tellers’ stalls now filled
the Arti platform.
 |
| Fortune teller on the Arti paltform |
We bought more offerings for the river, in the hope of a
more successful launch and joined four or five other passengers on a boat with
an outboard.
We chugged past the ghats at a leisurely pace, each one with
a set of steps leading up to a large, ornate building. Almost every ruler in
northern India had at some time built himself a palace by the banks of the holy
river. The Manmandir Ghat was built in 1770 by Maharajah Jai Singh II of Jaipur.
[We visited Jaipur and his Palace in 2018]
 |
| The Manmandir Ghat, Varanasi |
Beyond the Arti platform people were bathing, some performing
a swift ritual dunk, others swimming among the boats. We watched a late middle
aged couple inching gingerly into the water, she gripping hard onto his arm for
support, both physical and moral. Lynne shivered in sympathy, unimpressed by
Ajay’s assertion that the water temperature was actually higher than the air
temperature. He offered no comforting words on the cleanliness of the water. Above
the bathers a black and white kingfisher hovered with its back arched and beak
pointing downwards, then it spotted a fish and dived like an arrow.
A naked man holding a brass bowl strode out into the water….
 |
| A naked man strides into the Ganges |
….. he stooped to fill the bowl then poured the holy water
over his head.
 |
| ...and pours the holy water of the Ganges over his head |
At one ghat we watched monkeys chasing round the palace
roof. Then we passed the second, smaller cremation ghat, used for the funerals
of non-Brahmins. Beside it were two naked sadhus smeared in ashes. They looked
cold. The tall, thin one stood hunched with his palms turned outwards and the
shorter one, his hair tied in a bun on the top of his head started running
round in circles. Sometimes being a holy man is a form of community care.
 |
| Bathing ghat, Varanasi |
In the midst of all that is sacred is a dhobi ghat, the dhobi wallahs standing calf deep in the water slapping clothes onto horizontal stone slabs propped up in makeshift fashion. The laundry was laid out to dry on the steps above.
 |
| Dhobi ghat, Varanasi |
The boat turned and puttered into midstream and we made a
semi-successful attempt to launch our offerings, though mine capsized as it
touched the water.
 |
| Lynne makes her offerring to the Holy Ganges |
The south bank is a mud flat, bare except for a tent or two.
A skiff pushed off and headed towards us, rendezvousing fifty metres from the
southern shore. A couple transferred to it from our boat, a process fraught
with difficulty for a large middle aged woman. After a minor drama they were
transported off towards the mud flat. We returned along the waterfront....
 |
| The waterfront, Varanasi |
.... to the
main cremation ghat.
 |
| Ajay and the cremation ghat, Varanasi |
We walked up through the narrow lanes past piles of logs.
Wood is expensive, particularly the fragrant sandalwood, and 350Kg are needed to
cremate a body. Bodies are sometimes cremated together to reduce the cost.
 |
| Into the lanes behind the cremation ghat, Varanasi |
This is the oldest part of the city and every house in the maze
of narrow lanes either has a shrine outside or a personal temple inside. In the
midst of this ancient and exotic world, a metal door opened and a teenage boy
dressed in a British-style school uniform - grey trousers, blue blazer, white
shirt, striped tie - wheeled out his bike and set off for school.
 |
| Private shrine, old town, Varanasi |
Since sectarian bombings in 2006 and 2010 the area round the
Kashi Vishwanath Temple has been tightly controlled. For a small fee, we
deposited our cameras and personal effects with a local shopkeeper, keeping
only our passports. We passed through a metal detector at the entrance to an alley,
were searched and had our passports examined. After that we thought we would
enter the temple, but it is closed to non-Hindus. We were merely permitted to
stand on a step and look at the top of the buildings over a high wall, an
experience not worth the hassle.
Outside, the queues to do puja at the temple are controlled
behind heavy wooden barriers. At peak times, Ajay said, devotees can queue for
as much as six hours. The puja then takes six seconds.
 |
| Queue for puja, Kashi Vishwanath Temple, Varanasi |
It was breakfast time, but as the as the traffic was still
light we decided to hop across town to the Bharat Mata Temple first. When a man
has made his pile it is customary to build a temple to give thanks for his
fortune. Two such men in the 1930s observed that Varanasi already had a
superabundance of Vishnu Temples and, being nationalists, decided to build a
temple to Bharat Mata (Mother India) who had emerged as a personification of
India, if not quite a goddess, during the first stirrings of the independence
movement in the late 19th century. Opened by Ghandi, the temple features a
carved marble relief map of India. The map is precisely to scale – though using
different vertical and horizontal scales – but, being pre-partition, includes
Pakistan and Bangladesh as parts of India. For many the independence struggle was
sacred as well as political, but it is difficult to maintain such fervour 65 years after that struggle ended and Bharat Mata feels more like a museum than a temple.
 |
| Relief map of India, Bharat Mata Temple, Varanasi |
Back at our hotel a gentle vegetable curry with fried puris,
lime pickle with some crunchy bites of something, followed by a cake soaked in
syrup made a pleasing breakfast.
We barely had time for a shower (there had been no hot water
earlier) before Ajay returned for the next instalment.
We drove round the campus of Benaras Hindu University.
Founded in 1916 by Pandit Madan Malviya, who earned the title ‘India’s Biggest
Beggar’ for his fundraising activities, it is one of India’s leading universities
and has over 20,000 students. BHU was Ajay’s alma mater and he stressed that Hindus
have always been admitted regardless of caste - although admission is by no means
limited to Hindus.
Nearby is the Durga Kund Temple, and this time we were
allowed in, though photographs were not permitted. Durga is the many-armed warrior aspect of the
Divine Mother. She habitually rides a lion and her temple is painted red as a
symbol of creative energy - or blood depending on your preference.
 |
| Durga Kund Temple, Varanasi - from the outside |
Puja was being performed and a crowd was half queuing, half
jostling to be the next to present their offering. Traditionally this involved
sacrificing a chicken, but as this is no longer permitted they have to make do
with a coconut. A priest sits behind a low wall and each devotee offers him a
coconut cradled in a nest of flowers. Slipping the donation hiding among the
flowers into a strongbox, the priest casually flings the petals onto a heap,
smashes the coconut on a device like a boot scraper and hands the pieces back.
The priest looked bored, his expression and body language suggesting he had
nothing but contempt for the worshippers and their offerings. The people,
though, brimmed with sincerity, many coming round the side later just to touch
the pile of discarded flowers.
We returned to our hotel, said goodbye to Ajay and set out
in search of lunch. There were, we found, few restaurants in our corner of town.
The traffic was light, much of it schoolchildren going home for lunch and we
particularly liked this cycle-rickshaw-bus.
 |
| Cycle-rickshaw-school bus, Varanasi |
I sent the picture to the transport manager at SGS (our
former place of employment). As their new prep school is beginning to admit
children of this age, I thought he might be grateful for the suggestion. He
said he was satisfied with his fleet of minibuses. Stick-in-the-mud.
 |
| Cycle-rickshaw-bus, Varanasi |
At home we like to nibble Bombay Mix. India offers many
variations on this theme, though none (as far as I know) called Bombay Mix. We
bought one variation at this stall. Why it is also advertising men’s underwear
is a mystery.
 |
| Buying 'Bombay Mix', Varanasi |
We found a vegetarian restaurant (there seemed no other
sort) in the basement of a small hotel. It was dark and empty and we were just leaving
thinking it was closed when an enthusiastic young man appeared waving a menu.
We ordered a biryani, vegetable curry and a nan. The kitchen, behind a glass
screen, had been empty, but immediately an old man appeared and started rolling
out dough, and a younger man set about chopping vegetables. Our food may not
have been very interesting, but it was fresh and cooked to order.
We were not alone for long, being soon joined by a middle
aged Indian couple and then a worried looking Japanese girl. In halting English
she explained she had been to a hostel to visit a friend who, she discovered,
was out, had gone for a walk, become lost and could no longer find the hostel.
She did not know its name, but could describe it. The waiter and the other
diners made suggestions in equally halting English. We speak fluent English but
sadly had no suggestions to make. Half way through her lunch her friend phoned
and all was well.
In the afternoon we walked along the ghats from out hotel.
 |
| A walk along the ghats, Varanasi |
We paused by a pile of Saraswati skeletons fished from the river after the previous evening. Litter is the curse of India, but at
least this lot had been collected up. Whether anyone was going to move them from
here was another matter.
 |
| The tangled remains of the Saraswatis, Varanasi |
At various places cattle had come down to drink or wallow. This
one had delegated parasite control to the capable beak of a myna bird.
 |
| Myna bird pest control, Varanasi |
A boy of ten or so approached, offering us postcards. He was
full of smiles and charm, and haggled so artlessly that he managed to charge us
twice the going rate for twice as many postcards as we wanted.
As we passed the smaller cremation ghat, the guardian grabbed
us and led us to a view point. ‘No pictures,’ he said. ‘Respect the dead.’ He explained
the process, adding that it was men’s torsos and women’s thighs that are
hardest to burn. ‘Then,’ he said with a grin, ‘we rake everything left into the
river and let the fish sort it out.’ He told us of the documentary film makers
he had worked with, and how much they had paid him. When he was sure we had got
the message he said, ‘All right, just one photo.’ We tipped him well, but
declined his offer to take us to a silk weaving factory.
 |
| The smaller cremation ghat, Varanasi |
Lynne had regularly used a picture of the Kedar Ghat when
teaching Hinduism in school. Being photographed sitting in the middle of her
teaching aid caused her a small frisson of excitement.
 |
| Lynne on the Kedar Ghat |
It would not be India if there was not a game of cricket
somewhere. At any one time it seems that half the teenage boys in India are
involved in a game of ‘gully’ cricket. It keeps them out of mischief.
 |
| Gully cricket on the ghats, Varanasi |
On our way back we passed through the sadhu encampment. There
is one man who claims not to have sat down for several decades and spends his
days leaning on a wooden trapeze at the mouth of his tent. In another tent were
two sadhus, several young westerners of both sexes and a guitar. Whether their
smoking material is legal in India I do not know. Perhaps some holy men are
holier than others.
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