The Ghats,

Yesterday evening in order to keep our muscles from further heat cramps Jenneke and I decided to go for an evening walk along the Ghats. As we started out the sun had just hidden itself below the horizon and the last bits of orange were fading from the sky.

The ghats are basically huge sets of stone staircases which lead down to the ganges. The stairs are often painted two colors. For example one step would be painted orange and then the next light orange. From the bottom you look up to a mountain of horizontal stripes leading to either a temple, restaurant, or guest house. Many times at different points the steps spread out and feature huge platforms complete with miniature to full temples and statues. A favorite past time of Indians and tourists alike is to sit on these stairs under the stars and sip a 3 rupee cup of chai whilest watching the nightly 'arti' or religious ceremony ( I know very little about these ceremonies and therefore will just provide a wikapedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarti). From my purely observational and uninformed standpoint, what it looks like are young men draped in orange skirts slowly moving burning objects such as silver christmas tree like candles, food, and other things in circles while loud bells cling-clang-cling-clang-cling-clang constantly and two musicians play the drums and a instrument I don't quite recognize, but is the combination of guitar and accordion. None the less it is extremely interesting to watch and only enhanced through the accompaniment of the sweet milky aroma and taste of chai.

Thus after a brief stop for a cup of the wonderful beverage Jenneke and I made our way towards the old city. The plain walk its self is quite unspecial. On one side you have the black still river and the other dark buildings. Of course it is all of the various animals, people, and events found in India ensure any walk along the ghats will never be uneventful. While keeping our eyes pealed for sleeping dogs, cows, and beggars about two ghats into our walk we could see the bright burning light of a fire. As we approached it has evident that this was a funeral burning. We stopped to a moment and gazed into the dancing flames. Beyond the crowd of men, through the fierce yellow and blue and stacked wood, one could just make out the shape of a body. The observation of thin horizontal sticks that apparently were the charred remains of the ribs confirmed this fact for me. I really had expected a strong odor of rotting flesh but the drifting air only contains the usual traces of dung and urine with a touch of smoke. The event very peaceful. I felt I could loose myself in perfect scene of rhythmic flames set within the backdrop of the tranquil river. It was strange that the burning was at night. This meant that no women could attend. Perhaps the poor soul was not close with any women in his life, or no women had made the trip down.

However soon we resumed our walk and continued to transverse the ghats. The next scene we came across was a man atop a platform with a microphone. However this 'man' was covered from head to toe in a white powder. This powder combined with his dark skin actually gave him more of a light 'blue' glow. His curly hair was also coated as well as being woven into a tight bun which sat directly on the top of his head like a strange hat. This style of bun had also been applied to his frizzy facial hair, which fell into a knot at the botton of his chin. Just below the man's pot belly was a tiger print knee length piece of cloth that had been knotted at his hip to form a make shift skirt. Besides two necklaces of bright orange and white flowers this was the only clothing he adorned. The man looked like a character out of a hindi version of the flinstones. We were not sure what he was doing but behind him two vertical bamboo poles held up about 10 pictures of various hindu gods. At the foot of this structure there were many bunches of colourful flowers. After giggling a bit at his outfit we continued to walk only to suddenly here a highly pitched 'singing' flooding the empty ghat. This 'noise/hindi song' was originating from the strange man. After the somber burning this humours atmosphere was much appreciated. We left grinning ear to ear with the and with the after taste of the salty night air as we gasped for breath from laughter. His strange uneven melodies echoed and bounced through the empty sticky air as we made our way.

Only a little further into our journey we discovered another religious ceremony. Here, hundreds upon hundreds of tiny candles had been lit and covered the 200 plus stairs leading from a large red temple all the way down to the river's shore. There were so many candles that we barely could find a place to step. Looking around we soon realized the entire temple was draped in strings of orange flowers. There were hundreds upon hundreds of long lines of color gently dropping down from the building's corners and crevices. Yet there was not a soul around. Not even a cow or stray dog was roaming the area. The flicking light and erie silence was to me a thousand times more spiritual than the hectic temples or the shore of the Ganges with the bathing men, splashing children and constant hum of 'Boat madam, I take you out on the Ganges for good price". For that one instance as we paused amongst the candles I finally felt like I was in what is called the most 'spiritual place in India'. For just a second I felt content, relaxed and at peace. This to me is spirituality rather than Varanasi's day-to-day reality which for me is closer to the chaos of a circus than a holy destination. The stunning silence was hard to leave because I knew the atmosphere was about to change drastically as we approached 'old city'.

The 'old city' is a serious of narrow streets which twist and turn and have no real layout. When I say narrow I mean that the stone walk ways are the width of two people standing shoulder to shoulder and not a centimeter more. And of course these narrow openings are stuffed with the usually array of cows, motor bikes and hundreds of people. On either side of the crowded mess there are shops selling everything from cloths, scarfs, spices, and bangles. Like the rest of india the feeling of claustrophobia and dust, smell of sweets, sweat and sounds of desperate merchants and buyers trying to be heard is indescribable until you have actually experienced it for yourself.

So this is the place we were voluntarily marching toward on the warm april night in Varanasi. Finally we had reached 'main ghat' passing many other wonders and being offered a boat ride six more times and hash three times. I think the best line we received was "Hello Honny. You want some-honny" I am pretty sure the punk teenager meant 'Hello Hunny (as in sweetie) you want some? Hunny?' However in his rapid direct hindi accented english it sounded as if he was trying to sell us Winnie the Pooh's favourite snack rather than 'get with a westerner'. As we climbed up the stairs toward the street the merchants attacked us like the flies which swarm the cow dung in the streets. To ward them off I used my usual terribly accented spanish to say "No hables ingles! Lo Siento!" while jenneke fired off some Dutch. There before us were was the gate into the windy walkways. We were about to begin our journey through the 'old city'.

To be continued...