Varanasi (Part 1)

Though I kept careful notes and could write a play-by-play of my trip to Varanasi, there were so many ups and downs that I will instead provide some images of various points in the trip, in roughly chronological order.

After a sizzling meal in a heretofore unexplored part of Pune, where the speakers played primarily American Top 40 from the last decade with some classic rock thrown in, and after some time visiting with Jenny's host-family and naps in front of the fifth Harry Potter movie, we woke ourselves at 3 am to catch a taxi to Mumbai in order to catch our 9:30 am flight. It was not a comfortable ride in a mid-sized sedan cramming five of us, all of whom are larger than average for Americans, let alone Indians. We found it hard to sleep in that position, but since it was the middle of the night we managed it. I can't speak for the others, but despite the physical discomfort I found it somewhat therapeutic to be squeezed in the back seat with three good friends, especially since we all were trying as best we could to make each other comfortable while not having our feet fall asleep. My doze, at least, was a more zen sort of doze than I'd have expected. Perhaps for our next group meditation we should try all meditating while crammed in an enclosed space with each other.

AJ's sizzler, and Ryan. Several hours later, Ryan's feet were asleep and so was AJ. Coincidence? Regardless, AJ took this photo. I wasn't even there at the time.

 

Flash forward through plane delays, a not-unpleasant flight with samosas, and a stopover in Lucknow, and we were at the Varanasi airport, getting a taxi (two, this time, so it was considerably less crowded). AJ, Rachel, and Ryan took one taxi, and Jenny and I took another. As we were driving, she mentioned how similar the landscape was to other places in India, particularly Rajastan near Jaipur, which she had visited some weeks earlier. I had been thinking the opposite, how the landscape felt less like the flat agricultural land of Karnataka or the bustling cities of Pune and Mumbai. I thought it looked in some ways more like former factory towns of the American south, with many decaying brick sculptures and warehouse-type spaces. Regardless, the area definitely had the high population of cows and wandering roads that many associate with rural India. As we got closer into the city, though, the buildings grew taller and newer and were filled with shops, until we were near the city center, which had the sort of planning that was to be expected in an area that had been settled for thousands of years.

A panorama shot of the city from the rooftop of our hostel, Suraj Guest House.

In downtown Varanasi, we were guided through narrow alley frequented by cows, goats, and far too many two-wheeled motor vehicles for a two-meter-wide passage. Our guest house was situated far enough back from the main road that finding our way out was difficult, but once we learned the route to the ghats we found it was quite close. In the guest house, we met some of the men of the family that runs it as well as some puppies, who were quite friendly and didn't really understand that I had no plans of feeding them. We also got to see the view with the roof, which included Ganga Mata and plenty of old-city rooftops. In some ways it reminded me of old city Istanbul, but there was never any doubt that I was in India.

Rachel took a selfie with a puppy, and the puppy made the same face as her.

That night we wandered through streets and barely looked at the Dasara/Navatri lights as we wandered down crowded streets full of shops in search of the entrance to a temple which we never found (though I saw it the next day right on the main road). After twists and turns and one complete turn around, and the continued encounters with cows and two-wheelers (as well as some AK-47 sightings) we eventually found our way out of the street maze. I hadn't realized that I would be claustrophobic when surrounded by tall walls on all sides, but I suppose since I didn't stop walking or yell at anyone that objectively it wasn't that bad. It's good to learn your limits, and Varanasi definitely showed me those.

Jenny and Rachel take pictures of AJ, who is taking pictures of the three of us. Metaphotos are our meme.

A less abortive but far more comfortable sleep later, I once again woke before dawn in order to make it to an early river-tour of the old city. To get to the boat, we tiptoed across steps covered in alternate streams of running water and cremation ash, skirting near still burning pyres and trying to take in the dawn over a river and city that simultaneously made the mysophobe inside me pass out in shock and the antiquity-fancier inside me indulge in the illusion that it was hundreds of years ago. The boat, they had said, could fit twenty people, but it seemed pretty full with nine (three Germans, our youthful guide, and our group of five). As we paddled out toward the more open water, past still floating remnants of pyres and green bubbles of algae that illustrated the term “eutrophication” far better than anything I had seen before, I was surprised by how clear and cool the air was. I suppose it was early morning, or perhaps my nose was no longer registering scent, but the atmosphere felt almost clean, much more than the dust of humanity and livestock on land.

A submerged temple on a ghat. Photo courtesy of AJ.

Though I, of course, looked at the various ghats, with their walls frequented with art and the temple buildings showing their silhouettes regularly, I also spent some time watching the others in boats. The other people in my group were discussing how Indians always seemed to assume that Jenny was not from the US, despite her DC-suburb accent, and even would contradict her when she explained that she was, in fact, American. After all, if I had a rupee for every time someone here heard my name and was confused as to why I had an Indian name, I'd be able to pay exact change for my rickshaw rides. I found myself considering how throughout the world, people are surprised when any person from the US who is not white tells their country of origin. The US is, undeniably, an ethnically and racially diverse country, but that doesn't translate to being perceived as such abroad, where the vast majority of American ex-patriots and tourists are white (which, admittedly, is mostly due to the fact than those with the income necessary to travel from the US historically have been white). The Alliance program, though significantly whiter than the schools the students are enrolled in, is still much more racially (and probably, though this is harder to tell, socioeconomically) than the average American traveller. As I looked at the other boats, I realized that ours was the only one in which the group of tourists was multiethnic (I thought I saw an exception in one man who looked Indian-American, but then he made an announcement to the rest of the boat and I realized he was a tour guide). It is a bit sobering to realize that even on the other side of the world, in a city that is a pilgrimage point for two major world religions and has been around for thousands of years, that America's white-normativity remains painfully apparent.

Cremation pyres often include plants and other decorations, so this cow is picking through the ashes looking for delicious morsels. Photo by AJ.

Later, after a breakfast at the hostel and a walk past the boy who offered us hash (no thanks), we were walking along the ghats. We saw the cloud of smoke before we reached it, and I wrapped my handkerchief around my mouth and nose and tried to breath shallowly and ignore the smell of smoke. AJ mentioned seeing an attached foot in a burning pile far to small to be a person, and I decided aloud not to think about the implications of that while we were still so close, and possibly never. Rachel brought up a previous discussion we had concerning whether religion would exist without death. She explained that after talking to one of her religious Jewish friends about it she decided that if people didn't die there would be no reason to think there was a world outside of our own since there was no need to put the people who had died there. I commented both that Judaism has a much foggier theology of the afterlife than the other religions that grew out of it and that there would still be a need to explain things we don't understand, such as bad luck or strange phenomena. Ryan commented something to the effect that bad luck and explicable things only made since in the context of a finite human life. I still maintain, though, that the fact of our own mortality is so deeply ingrained in everything that humans do or think that the thoughts of such immortal humans would be impossible for us to predict. I also wondered aloud what immortality even was, if in this world people would just age indefinitely or if at some point they would stop. We decided then to focus our energy on walking through one of the more crowded ghats, which had lots of bathers and people trying to sell us postcards.

In the interest of not making you read 2000 words at once, we'll take a break here. Here's a question for you all: Have you ever had an experience with people whose view of death is categorically different from yours, whether because they do or do not believe in an afterlife or in reincarnation, or because they seem too certain that death is not the end? Did hearing their perspective make you reevaluate your views?