Posts tagged ‘varanasi’

Varanasi, part deux

It has been a great couple of days in Varanasi.  My favorite parts (and pretty alI did) was walking along the ghats, people watching and going to the festival in the evening.  But, I did take a morning boat ride on the Ghanges.  Here are some pictures from that:

For those of you who have never been to India, it is hard to describe.  But I made a some observations that capture a little of what India, or Varanasi, is. Varanasi is…..

• Straight razor shaves on the street
• Boys flying kites
• Dips in the ghanges
• Shared fear (and laughter) of being trampled by a cow
• Holiness everywhere
• Marigold strands
• Boys diving into the river
• Women smiling back at me (after I catch them staring – and return the stare with a smile)
• Cobras in baskets (oh hell no!  how do you know it won’t come towards me???)
• Grinning sadhus in orange
• The stench of piss and cow shit
• Skinny little dogs everywhere
• Shrines and little temples tucked into every street
• People, strangers, who genuinely look out for me in crowds
• Beautiful, bedazzling, colorful saris
• Pollution and trash everywhere
• People sleeping just about anywhere

The last night I was there was the big festival.  There were 24 Brahmins (priests) performing the puja on the water front – though every ghat had their own ceremony.  During the afternoon each ghat was preparing with laying out the oil lamps and mandelas on the pavement.

I found a spot in front of the main stage but that was definitely one of the most crowded areas.  It was so busy and crazy!  Thousands of people started to fill the ghats two hours before anything even started.

The area I was started to fill up quickly, but fortunately the people around me were looking out for me- from the sassy teenage girl tapping people on the shoulder who stood in front of us and elbowed me in the side reminding me to pray to the group of twenty-something men who simultaneously made fun of me and offered for me to stand in front of them so I could see (and who immediately stopped their laughter and jokes once the puja started) to the policeman who wad basically hitting people with his baton to get them out of the walkway but exchanged smiles with me and made sure I could see!

Following the ceremony, I attempted to walk down the ghats to see some of the oil lamps but the crowd was intense and I was immediately being knocked around by the crowd.  I heard a voice next to me saying ‘just stay with me, follow me’.  Not wanting to be trampled by the crowd, I put my trust in this guy and he safely pulled us to the side out of the crowd of thousands trying to go in either direction.

This guy introduced himself as babu, but that is the word for little boy [which cracks me up every time I hear someone shout ‘hey, babu!’] so I didn’t really believe him but he invited me to a small Shiva ceremony that he and some friends were going to have soon.

Though it sounded sketch, I thought I would check it out.  The shrine turned out to be right on the ghats but hidden away – I passed it a dozen times but never noticed it before.  When I got there three men were preparing for the ceremony – putting flower strands on all the ‘statues’ [my bad in advance for not knowing the correct terminology].  Babu had me help light oil lamps which lined the shrine and sprinkle marigold petals in the main area.  A family came in at one point and made an offering of rice and prayed.  But Babu and his buddies were waiting for the Brahmin to show up to perform the ceremony and since it was late I bide my farewells (it was about 10 at that point and I felt strange being in the shrine with a bunch of dudes, holy as it might be).  But I wish I had pictures of the shrine to show you as it was so beautiful.

And that my friends was my adventures in Varanasi!

Varanasi

Stepping out of my guesthouse and into the narrow alley ways was …. well, it was a bit of a shock.  Glad I had been to India before!  It took me a few minutes to get my bearings and to remember to ignore or just say no to so many of the requests coming my way (music lessons?  tea?  silk?  hashish?  boat ride?  see the cremations?  see my store, no you don’t need to buy?  where you from, madame?  how are you today?  need a male companion?)

I got directions from my guesthouse to head down to the Ganges – and there I headed.  I got turned around in the many alley ways and ended up on the main road – full of stores. It was a pretty insane re-introduction to India, though it got me on my feet pretty quickly.  I was followed for a short distance – though as soon as I stood next to the police (which seem to be at a lot of the intersections) he disappeared.  I guess it pays to not be super friendly sometimes!  🙂

I tried to make my way down to the Ganges – but got stymied by a procession of people (which I later discovered — when I saw the beginning of the procession — was a typical procession of people headed down to the Ganges with a body to be cremated).  But eventually I made it down there — and then spent my time wandering the ghats –there is a total of 80 of these bathing steps that go into the Ganges.   Here is where a lot of the propositioning came about while I walked along the river.

My best moment though was when two young girls called me over to talk — we talked about school (their favorite class is english… and science.. and math…. and all of them!  when asked which class they did not like?  none of them!  um…. something tells me they weren’t telling me the truth! 🙂 and we took some pictures.  they were very cute.  And I thought that they were going to be my first interaction that did not have an ulterior motive — but no, one of them called over their dad to see if I wanted a boat ride.  But – none-the-less,  they were pretty great!  I told them I would share their picture and their names with my students!

Varanasi is one of the holiest cities in India for Hindus.  They pilgrimmage here to wash away their sins or cremate their loved ones.  I saw lots of people washing in the water (who knew Indian men liked tiny tighty-whiteys so much?!), doing their laundry and of course – cremations.  Also, you can take a boat ride out on the Ganges – which I hope to do during morning time.

Turns out that I am here during a big festival, the Ganga Mahotsav.  Last night was a large event – a musical concert and then a large puja on the river front.  I was sitting alone on these stairs trying to figure out what was happening – and a family came and sat next to me.  Mom offered me a cookie (though Lonely Planet has me all paranoid about accepting food from people b/c of some folks were drugged on trains and all their stuff was stolen) and the son told me about the festival.  They had traveled 3 days to get here with the goal of bathing once in the Ghanges.  They were perplexed why I would be traveling alone – but were happy enough to sit with me and tell me about the puja that would begin.

The actual ceremony was pretty amazing — full of lights and chanting and bells and incense.  I would say there were thousands of people there — out in boats or up on the stairs.  I found a seat right below where the puja was happening (that was after I was totally ripped off by some lady to put a diya (earthen lamp – candle with marigold in a banana leaf – i think….) in the water. She then proceeded to do the same with every tourist in the area…. but the upside was she lead us to a river front seat).  in a few nights, there is the culminating event – which will have thousands of diyas floating down the river and chants and incense — the program says that it will ‘make you believe that you are in heaven, witnessing a celestial happening’ – definitely something to look forward to.

Today was spent taking care of business — found an ATM that worked (well with the help of my new buddy, a security guy at the bank who laughed at me ‘reading’ hindi (which is what happens when you see the same screen in english and in hindi OVER and OVER again!), got a new SIM card for my phone and spent 4 frustrating hours trying to figure out trains and the rest of my trip (so much for doing with the flow!  who knew, in a country of a billion people, you should make your train reservations WELL in advance!  like 3 months in advance…. not quite sure what will happen since i am waitlisted for every possible train I wanted to take….)

I picked up a great book today that i cannot wait to sit on the steps of one of the ghats and read tomorrow – called The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.  I can already tell it is one of those books I want to read slowly so that it will not end.  But — I will leave you with this image about the Mother Ganga (ghanges):

“No – I urge you not to dip in the Ganga, unless you want your mouth full of feces, straw, soggy parts of human bodies, buffalo carrion, and seven different kinds of industrial acids.”

Oh, India – where else would that be one of the holiest sites?