26.3.2008

Varanasi is the place to die

This is one of the first things our taxi driver said this morning when we arrived in Varanasi at 7.30am. "People come to Varanasi for 2 reasons, to learn and to die". In hinduism the belief is that anyone's ashes spread to Ganges will directly go to heaven so there is a home where people come to stay and die.

It was also inevitable that we would see many cremations along the Ganges today, as we took an evening boat out on the river we already witnessed a very dramatic experence. Life and death all go together in India, there is no hiding of the sick or the dead.

He was maybe 25-30, slim, still looked alive, wrapped in a golden colour cloth and his body rested at the foot of the river. There were a crowd of men around him, one crying very deeply, that it hurt to watch. His feet wrapped in the cloth was already touching the river. The crying man took water with his palms from the river and washed his face one last time, to bless him, to get him to rest in peace and to go to heaven. This was his last bath in the holy water. The holy water where everyone wakes up very early to wash, every single day, as part of their daily ritual, washing the bad karma and purifying the body.

As the crying man washed the dead man's face I started to cry. It was a cry that needed to be let out, tears on to Ganges. It brought back my father's telling, of how he washed my brother's body before the funeral. "He looked so peaceful, no pain but a gentle light on his face" before kissing him goodbye for the last time. I cried a lot, not sure for who. For the man who was about to be burnt in a fierce fire, for the man who was crying, for my dad or for myself. I didnt know anymore, all I knew that my heart ached and I had to cry.

Last few days have been so extreme. In Agra my heart filled with love when I saw the Taj Mahal, a true love story. Yet again it was a stroy of death and loss. In Varanasi my heart was filled with sadness, death was waiting in every corner and displayed so publically.

By the time the sun set there were perhaps at least 20 big fires along the Ganges, as the ceremonies in the main ghats marked respect to Shiva, with drums, with chanting and men dancing with fire. People put hundreds of candles lit up in to the Ganges during the ceremony.

I guess we must all die one day anyway, destruction exists so there can be new beginnings...