Varanasi, Death City

The Ghat waterfront temples

  Varanasi is the centre of death in Hinduism. It lies on the holiest river in India, the Ganges which is said to run from Shiva's feet, and thus it is held that if you manage to expire here then - murderer, thief or blasphemer - you will go to heaven and escape being reborn as a lizard or a moth. For that reasons thousands of the sinful and contrite stack up in the guesthouses and hostels across the waterfront.
  But despite the presence of death and religion there is no sense of piety, at least in the Western sense. I watched men on three different occasions hitch up their tunics and shit on in the middle of a crowded pavement without warning or ceremony. The alleys are crowded with bulls, chickens, goats, monkeys, and their accumulated effluent and, preposterously, dozens of food stalls. The cars honk, the sellers scream. And at one point while wondering at night I turned to be borne down upon by four pall bearers chanting hymns and jogging in short steps like soldiers. They carried a bamboo stretcher covered in a purple sheet, out of the bottom corner of which stuck a stone dead foot. They marched passed me and as I pressed against the wall the appendage passed within an inch of my nose. The next day I saw a corpse burnt on a pyre of sandal wood.

More temples

   Yet despite the smell and the chaos there is a lot of beauty here. The water front is surprisingly relaxed and spacious, and the ceremonies of puja (prayer) to celebrate Shiva and the river are grandiose affairs with incense and coordinated hand gestures from young apprentice Brahmans (priests). And as the sun sets and you sit on a roof terrace looking over the temples and the ghats you can feel the age of the place in spirit if not in stone.

Puja