varanasi

we are staying in the ancient holy city of varanasi, where bodies are burnt on the banks of the ganges and where faithful hindus come on pilgrimage to bathe in the water of the same river. an interesting parallel--ganges translates to "mother" as does mekong.
we arrived yesterday morning by train--hot, tired, and very out-of-sorts from our 22 hour ride with little sleep and little food. the taxi walla--as expected--refused to take us to our first choice of guesthouses, insisting that he knew a better place, etc, etc, etc... this is the way with all taxi drivers in india--you are very lucky if they take you straight where you are going, as they work on comission from hotels, restaurants, travel agencies, etc, everyone it seems is connected to a network. so we let him show us his choice of hotels--vowing to pay no more than 150 rupee--or $3.50 per night, therefore insuring that his comission would be negligable. we were finally too tired to play the taxi walla game and agreed to stay at the second place he showed us--a dingy affair just behind a crematorium ghat on the banks of the river. by this time it was past noon and we were hungry and exhausted. we checked in, took much needed showers, and set out for lunch. on our way out the owner of the hotel waylaid us. he had a few things to tell us about the city--this is not unusual, pretty much every time you arrive in a new place the hotelier will want to tell you about the city; attractions, observances, and cautions. as he was speaking with us on the balcony landing, he pointed down to the street below, "there a body is coming", he said. sure enough, down on the street we saw a group of white-clad men carrying on their shoulders a brightly wrapped bundle on a wooden cot, they were followed by mourners also dressed in white.
our hotelier, Ganeesh, asked us to follow him down to the crematorium where he would tell us all about the hindu customs surrounding death--particularly in varanasi.
we went with him to a stone overlook where we sat and listened to him speak about the cremation rights.
it is very auspicious to die in varanasi, for hindus varanasi is the most ancient holy "father" city, and to die in varanasi grants the individual "moksha", or liberation from karma and the life, death, rebirth cycle--the soul is free and ascends to nirvana and oneness with god. the body is taken to the banks of the ganges within 3 hours of death, wrapped first in white, and then in a bright shawl it is dipped in the ganges and purified. then the bright shawl is removed and the body is laid--still in white, on a pyre built in a one of three spots depending on the caste of the dead individial. clarified butter, sandalwood, and other herbs are poured over the body, the body is given--by a male family member--5 drinks of water from the river. one for each of the elements--air, water, earth, fire, and ether. then more wood is laid across the body to keep it from moving in the fire. only male family members are allowed to observe the actual cremation. the pyre is lit and sandalwood sawdust is continually thrown on the pyre to keep the flames going and to give the smoke a sweet smell. goats and dogs, attracted by the smell, come down to the banks. the goats chew on the marigolds that are strewn about the pyre. women are forbidden to watch the ceremony for fear that, overcome by their emotions, or drugged and overpowered by her relatives, a wife might throw herself, (more likely be thrown), onto the pyre to die with her husband. less than 100 years ago it was customary that the widow should do this. now there are laws against bride burning--but the tradition persists in many places. the body burns for 3 hours--when the pyre has burned down, what is left unburned of the individual--hips if it is a woman, chest if it is a man, is thrown into the ganges where smaller marine life feeds off of the flesh and hopes that in the next life it may be incarnated as a man. there are certain types of people who are not burned. sadhus, cobra bite victims, pregnant woman, children under 7 years, lepers, and smallpox victims. it is believed that sadhus are already close to god and nirvana, cobra bite victims are purified by the holy venom of the cobra, pregnant women are already pure--the baby inside them purifies them, young children have led too short a life, and lepers and smallpox victims have been cursed with the disease by god. these bodies are taken in a boat to the middle of the river where they are dropped in, wrapped in white, and weighted by stones.
watching the cremation was very surreal. as we watched we listened to the story. there were two pyres set up, one of them had the body of a woman, the other had the body of a man. the man was burning, his legs and head were on fire--his arm, smooth and brown, came free of the white sheet and was still unscorched when we left.
the pyres are always going. at night the electricity went out and emerson went and watched a ceremony for vishnu at the outdoor temple between the hotel and the crematorium. the bodies kept coming. Ganeesh told us that people come to varanasi and wait to die. he knows a woman who has been here 25 years waiting to die and attain moksha. when we left him and went to lunch we saw countless pilgrims bathing in the murky brown water of the ganges. after lunch i slept most of the afternoon into the evening--slightly delirious with a mysterious fever and exhaustion that left me feeling fine this morning. we decided to change hotels--it was a little intense being right there at the crematorium where the smoke from the pyres and the music of the unending funeral processions comes through our window all night and day.
it is pretty intense anyway--varanasi. Ganeesh told us, "India is the LSD of countries, you can either have a good trip or a bad trip, but either way, it's going to be a trip".