Varanasi, Ghats and Death

I made it to Varanasi. It was a crazy two-day long venture via plane and sitting around Indian airports, but eventually I made it. And absolutely nothing could have prepared me for India. The minute I got in my taxi to take me from the airport to my guesthouse (which actually didn't take me to my real guesthouse and instead took me to one that they had an agreement with the taxi to take foreigners to. Scams are NOTORIOUS here, as I've discovered), my world changed. The poverty, the madness of Indian traffic. It's really quite indescribable and undeniably overwhelming.

I eventually took a room in the guesthouse, due to me being lost and tired on the other side of the globe, and after settling in, went to go find the Varanasi Ghats. I found them easily enough and then the real insantiy began. For those of you unfamiliar, the Varanasi Ghats are essentially big bonfires along the River Ganges where they burn dead bodies. People travel to Varanasi when they're sick or near dying to be burnt at the Ghats. The Hindu religion (used losely here) also says that if you die in Varanasi you're instantly sent to Godhead and you don't have to reincarnate anymore. I stood around the Ghats just watching and an Indian man, who said he worked for the hospice but eventually scammed me into giving him money for the hospice though I suspect he didn't work for it but used that line to get money from sympathetic foreigners, led me around the Ghat and showed me everything. He brought me up real close to the ghats, so much in fact that I had to hold my hankercheif over my face to avoid the heat and ashes (remember, these are bodies burning...didn't really want the ashes in my mouth--although the man kept saying "no worries. It's holy ashes!"). It was at this point that I saw my first human body halfway through being burnt. Another sight that I'm not sure if it's possible to ever be prepared for. We continued and the man showed me how the brothers of the dead shave their hair, beard and moustache and then he led me to the "eternal fire" (along the way I had to step around some dead bodies covered and lying on the ground waiting for the ghats) from which embers are taken to start the Ghats burning each day. I spent the rest of the day hanging around the Ghats, splashing in the Ganges and trying my best to hide the fact that I was white to avoid scams.

All this death made me start thinking. My venture into India begins in a place where Indians come to die. What part(s) of me did I come to India to die? Naivety? My American outlook? Much has already been vanquished me in as I've walked the corridors of Varanasi, seeing wild dogs and people living in shacks.

However, we must also remember why people come to Varanasi to die. The man who led me around the ghats told me that crying wasn't allowed at the Ghats, otherwise the soul wouldn't reach Godhead. While parts of me have and will die in India, I must keep in mind that spirit which continues to Godhead after dying in Varanasi. It's an incredible place. It's a scary place. It's a beautiful place. It's a wild place. It's a thought provoking place. It's a reflective place. I will come back from this venture undeniably a changed person.

That's all for now. I'm taking the train from Varanasi to Mathura tonight and then from Mathura to Vrindavan tomorrow morning via bus. That's where I'll meet up with Carl Herzig (a professor at St. Ambrose) and some friendly faces will definitely be a sight for sore eyes already.

Hare Krsna!
Dylan