Varanasi is a city with endless history, one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. Being the center of many Hindu traditions, it conserves the rites long forgotten in contemporary, western societies. The waters of the Ganges are sacred, and many believe that it contains the key to purify the soul and break the endless cycle of reincarnations. This is one of the reasons that make this city interesting. Closer to death, many Hindus move to Varanasi, so they can be cremated next to the holy river. The rituals consist in a procession around the city with the corpse, that ends in one of the burning ghats. There, the body is placed in between a pile of ardent woods, while a priest and some family members chant. Women are not permitted to be close to the funeral pires, as many throw themselves to the fires in the old days, performing the ultimate demonstration of love. After the body is reduced to ashes, one of the family members collects them to be thrown in the river.
There is something almost magnetic when watching at the funeral pires. Each pire last several hours, and I don't get to see any demonstrations of sadness in the participants of the funeral. That might be due to the different assumption of death in Hinduism. Rather than an end of the path, death seems to represent just one of the phases one has to pass. Tears will disturb souls in their liberating trip. The naturality of such an event embodies the moment in a rather peaceful atmosphere, comparing to catholic rituals. In Colombia and other South American cultures, a funeral is loaded with sadness, and people may even hire people to cry at the funeral of big, respected figures. I stay here for some time, just watching the corpses being bathed, prepared, burnt and collected, and think to myself on how natural this process (I mean, life) is. I mean, we come, do what we are meant to do, and depart again, flowing again. Sometimes our larger-than-life plans places the need of transcendence before the deeds of living, learning and loving, and when we face the reality (that we are just simple, little human beings) the conflicts with our ego kick in deeply.
Walking through Varanasi is fascinating at each step: a sadhu (holy man) meditate day and night at the sides to the river, while in the narrow streets dozens of dogs, cows, monkeys and sometimes rats cramp the space. An intense scent of sandal wood can be felt at each corner, as the funerary processions move fast and with regularity. At dusk, the highly complex puja (Hindu worship ritual) takes place in the main ghat, in front of the holy river. Here Brahmin priests (that otherwise work as regular store keepers or the like) perform several, delicate steps involving water, fire and inciense. All this convives with an overflowing tourist mass in search of an experience of enlightenment, from experiential approaches (with yoga, meditation and other schools popping every ten meters) to more down-to-the-business views (where any kind of mystical or not so much drugs can be found).
To me, the place is hard to assimilate: on the one hand, it is super interesting to see how devoted are Hindus with their believes. At every moment, one can see people flocking to the Ganges for a bath, a praying or an offering. Knowing that at these latitudes, the Ganges is already polluted by a rate million times bigger than the advised for human consumption makes me think what kind if bold fate puts us in jeopardy with a rational mind. Talking to a boat driver in his early twenties with a deep attraction towards Japanese women, he elaborates a bit on the role of the river: it is the mother that everything forgives, the fair father that treat all beings in the same way, and the puryfing god who brings water and work. The Ganges is unquestionable that way, and therefore, it is an urgent matter to have it clean of industrial pollution, so the rituals of the community can be preserved.
I stay in the first hostel of my trip (an uncommon thing in India so far), which somehow amplifies this experience. The characters here staying are all but standard, and one can see the god-knows-who guru's monk fully dressed in white, to the 60+ yogi in search for a rediscovery of his experiences as hippie. The place itself differs a bit from the normal hostel, as the function is closer to a social center where locals and strangers learn from each other. In these rooms sometimes get to talk with the family living in the hotel (not that I have a good Hindi or they a good English, anyway) and feel relaxed and appreciate their attention and patience. When I talk about the mice in the room, they just refer to them as friends, and show me pictures of the mice temple in Bikaner. After all, Ganesha's, one of the favorite Hindu deities, has a mouse as his celestial vehicle.
This place is one and so many stories that it would take more than one post to relate everything to be experienced, but there is one special story that I want to recall. Varanasi has two faces, and their holiness can be silent at times. I walk the narrow streets during day and feel exposed to the commercial and spriritual face, but the most striking vision of the place was for me the one I had when nobody is around. My train leaves at four in the morning and there is no taxi, nor tuk tuk who could come even close to the main ghat, and the only way to go out of the place is by walking some miles to the main road. At three in the morning, Varanasi is saint: the animals all gathered together in the corners to keep some warm, while a helping hand has given sarongs and milk to some of the pregnant bitches (the animal ones, I mean) so they can feed their pups. Even the market, once cramped and dirty, seems to have a different atmosphere: only some monks are still laying down in meditative pose, while beggars sleep.
There is an interesting difference that I perceive regarding the work and life here. In the western world we strive to have a clear separation between what it is our working life and our personal one. That results in the kind of jobs where we are most efficient, and less connected to our colleagues, I suppose. In other terms, forget about your being for a fraction of your time, so you can enjoy your full potential afterwards. On the other hand, it seems to me that such separation makes us more harm than good. Come to think about it. What good can do to your person to be splitted in two: for eight-ten hours you embrace one avatar, and the rest of the time you try to fill the void that such action letting free your "other being", that one of father, friend, lover, etc. It took me many years to assume that there can be two or many if these facets in your life, but I also think that a proper balance between them has to come with a job that also let you embrace the other missions you have in life, those of love, support and friendship. You might ask why I am bringing this reflection up now: and it is because India seems to have a different concept of work and life. I have yet not seen other culture where everybody is working all the time, and still everything seems so steady. In my previous jobs, nobody had expected from me more than what it has been stablished in a contract: a lease of human time to perform a creative task. Everything outside that scope have to be renegotiated, and the cases where there have been extralimitations are filled with guilt. India does not seem to have such a concept. Work is all you do, but all your roles as a spiritual person, family or friend are deeply intertwined in your daily life. My cycle rickshaw won't complain if it is three in the morning and he is asleep: it is what he is meant to do. On the other hand, things can become very inefficient, and you might need to wait some time while the counter office you are expecting to be open finishes one offering to a god, or a simple cup of tea.
After Varanasi, we will direct our paths towards Bodhgaya. The experience in this remanse of tranquility will be told in a new episode...
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