This is Varanasi, or as it is also known, Benares or Kashi. It is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, something that one does not find hard to believe while wandering its labyrinthine streets, flanked by crumbling edifices.
It is also one of the holiest cities and most sacred sites for Hindus, Jains and Buddhists. Pilgrims flock to the city and particularly to the waters of the reportedly septic Ganga (Ganges). Hindus believe that when one bathes here in the River Ganges sins are remitted, while to die at Varanasi is to be released from the cycle of transmigration that we know as reincarnation.
While I travelled around India last summer (yes it was hot, very, very hot and at the end wet, very, very wet) I met multitudes of sweaty travelers who raved about the marvels of this city and who described it as being 'amazing'. Few could explain why they found the city to be moving, few even attempted to explain what they found to be so amazing about Varanasi.
In Darjeeling I met two young english men who had (like myself) just arrived on a train from Varanasi, they used the a-word as glibly as did most other travelers, but when I told them that I hadn't been enamoured with this ancient pilgrimage site they turned away and ended the conversation, rather than explaining to me what I had missed.
A girl who I met at a childrens' home told me that she found Varanasi to be amazing and 'such a special place', but when I asked her to go on she simply screwed up her face.
On a bus across Nepal, from Pokhara to Kathmandu I met an Irish man from County Clare who we will call Bob (not to hide his identity but because I genuinely cannot remember his name). Bob had lived in the city that he called Benares during the 1970s. Bob at least made some attempt to explain his fascination with Benares/Varanasi by describing how he had been seduced by the colourful nature of Hinduism. He even took a Hindu name (much to the disgust of his Catholic mammy back home in County Clare), learnt to speak and write Hindi and took up tabla. While living in Varanasi, he and his then girlfriend had owned a boat and used to travel up and down the River Ganges, relaxing and watching the world go by, or up in smoke, between tabla lessons or prayers.
Few travelers that I met showed Bob's commitment to learning and few had decided to make a life in India, as he had. Most, like myself, were just visiting, hoping for some sort of enlightenment if it was to be found without enormous personal effort and wasting time somewhere warm (ha ha, anyone who has visited India during the hot season will understand what an understatement this is), colourful and different from where they were from.
I found Varanasi to be smelly and dangerous. Twice, while walking in the streets and while wearing long skirts, long sleeves and a long scarf across my body (I definitely was not looking for it) I had my ass grabbed. There were cows and buffalo everywhere, which I don't mind, but the smell of their excrement can sometimes be overpowering. Bodies were carried down narrow streets on narrower stretchers and on the riverside-ghats those bodies burned.
Every evening, colourful candlelit ceremonies took place on the ghats and these would have been quite spectacular to watch had I been able to sit still for a moment without people coming to take my picture, squeeze themselves where there was little space between myself and my boyfriend, or pull at my arm to show me the postcards or fans that they were selling.
There were wonderful moments, like sitting talking to a young boy who was studying at the english school nearby and who told us that he wanted to be a computer programmer - his enthusiasm for life and for opportunity was infectious and seemed to be representative of the new fortunes of India. I loved to watch people play cricket in the most unsuitable of spots - down tiny alleyways and right alongside the water - sometimes with a crowd of onlookers and commentary over loudspeaker.
In my opinion, Varanasi was interesting and photogenic in a dirty, crumbled, dusty way. But in my experience, amazing it was not.
I am utterly confused by world religions and specifically by hinduism, which appears to me to be a very open, very colourful religion that is interpreted by different people in different ways. Furthermore, I am confused by the fact that so many people with so many (millions of) deities can have anything in common. They experience something that they believe to be shared and that commonality is important to them.
I find this amazing. But not the place where it happens to happen.
I just wish that whatever is special about this place could be explained to me by one of the people who think that they 'got it', whatever someone who is not hindu, not buddhist, not jain (and I would venture, in the case of many of the people that I chanced to come into contact with, probably knows little more than I do about these major world religions) could 'get' from the coming together of so many different peoples in joyous worship, in a town where I sweated myself skinny, had my body groped by strangers and feared for the sickness that floated in the ashen air. Am I the only person who thinks that there is a contradiction in the fact that Varanasi is a place of worship and yet a place that often disgusts as a result of the sheer volume of people attracted there?
I genuinely wish that someone could explain. Many people clearly do find meaning here but I came away very ill with food poisoning and no less the wiser. If you can share any insight please do, because I would be very grateful if someone could shed a little light on what is becoming a dusty memory that I still don't understand.
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