At least, that's what proud, nostalgic Indians will tell you. The matter is up to stuffy academics to debate. From my point of view, Varanasi was old. We arrived late at night at the Mughal Sarai train station, then crammed 4 backpacks and 4 pairs of woman hips into a tiny rickshaw. The rickshaw wove through the dense, polluted fog as strange images faded in and out of my perception on either side of us: Indian cows gazing at us with enormous watery eyes, scrawny men with dirty turbans and dhotis balancing baskets of vegetables on their heads, and the occasional temple.
Our driver parked his rickshaw after the streets got too narrow, and led us through the labyrinth of ancient stone corridors that supposedly led to our hostel. We might as well have taken a time-traveling rickshaw to Varanasi 400 years ago--there was no sign of us still being in the 21rst century, besides the occasional motorcycle careening around corners. The fog (or smog?) was still so thick I could barely see our driver in front of us as he wove through the mind-boggling maze of humans, entire herds of cattle and water buffalo, sleeping dogs, food-sellers' carts, and mounds of garbage and feces. All crammed into the narrowest, most fragrant alleys known to man. Have these buildings fallen closer and closer together throughout the centuries? Or were people just the size of gnomes when they designed the streets of Varanasi?
Sunday, November 29, 2009:
5:30 am. We drag ourselves out of bed, cloak ourselves in Darjeeling-purchased yak wool, and launch ourselves into the dark and grimy alleyways down to the Ganges. The ghats are home to an interesting assortment of people and animals before sunrise: homeless men sleeping camouflaged beneath piles of cardboard and trash, men wearing nothing but dirty loin cloths doing their morning stretches and puja, dunking themselves into the Ganges, along with the quintessential, bleary-eyed tourists followed by teenage boys begging to take them on a morning boat ride. The whole scene is like a bizarre, dirty 3rd world amusement park, only everything is very, very real.
We found ourselves an eager young man, and paid him 100 rupees (2 dollars) to take the 3 of us on a boat ride down the Ganges as the sun rose. The sun rose incredibly slowly through the polluted mist, first illuminating the millions of dirt particles in the air with an eerie rose-colored glowing aura. We passed ghat after ghat, where devotees (all men) were performing puja, greeting the day and worshiping the mighty river that brings life to all of India. We passed one ghat where several men were beating on drums and giggling ecstatically to themselves. When they saw us pass by, they started laughing hysterically and beating their drums even harder. Glad to be used for entertainment purposes, always. Most entertaining for me, however, was watching the enormous boats full of Japanese tourists, decked out in face masks and matching tourist uniforms, snapping photos happily of the bathing devotees. The entire experience was incredibly surreal, and since we went to sleep as soon as we got back to the hostel, I'm not completely sure it actually happened.
Later:
Estathea, Sara and I set off on an adventure to see the Durga Temple. Durga is another rather fierce incarnation of the divine feminine energy Hindus worship, but nowhere near as bloodthirsty as Kali. The temple looked like a terra-cotta red, multi-tiered palace from some fantasy world. Inside was a small idol of Durga and around 25 devotees prostrating themselves on the smooth marble floor. It was completely silent. I walked around the temple to a small Shiva shrine. After making a donation of 10 rupees, a smiling priest blessed me and the entire United States (bonus!), then hit me on the head with a strange black, floppy rod, tied a black bracelet around my wrist, and smeared a wet red dot onto my forehead.
We arrive at another temple...Tulsi Mandir? I can't remember the exact name, but this temple was bizarre. The entire Ramayana was inscribed on the walls upstairs. In the back was a strange room full of mechanical puppets acting out various scenes from the Ramayana. We got in line next to Indian parents leading their children by the hand through the exhibit, but this was no childish display. We walked through the room, gasping in horror at puppet demons twitching on the ground underneath their slayers tearing off their flesh, puppet Parvati burning in her husband's funeral pyre (which began the practice of sati, or wife-burning). There was a little guru teaching baby Krishna how to play strange puppet instruments, along with countless other surreal scenes acted out by puppets.
Back at the hotel, Sara, Estathea and I climb the steep stairs to the rooftop cafe. It's a strange transition from the grimy, chaotic streets of Varanasi. It's strange to go from that world to a cacoon of "spiritual tourists," joint-smoking white people, all with an extensive catalog of their exotic travels and metaphysical ponderings about the world. We are surrounded by people with strange tatoos, funky haircuts and beautiful fabrics that are just begging for you to ask them about. Someone is playing classical guitar. There are joints and bowls passed from table to table. Everyone looks tripped out. We are the youthful representatives of the West--not really fitting into Western society, we sit perched awkwardly on the fringe of this crazy Eastern society, trying to formulate ideas and philosophies to guide our lives, to help us fit in somewhere.
Hmm...Varanasi...It seems so bizarre to me that this place of ancient and obsessive Hinduism exists, but even more bizarre that for some it is a spiritual theme park, and hundreds of glazed-eyed white people dressed in flowing clothing and awkward bindis come in hordes to observe the spiritual madness and try their best to be a part of it.
Out in the streets again, and we can't go for more than 20 minutes without dodging a funeral procession: men chanting and weaving through the people and cattle toting a body on a stretcher, wrapped in gawdy red and gold fringed cloth. They are bringing these bodies to the burning ghats, to be cremated and cast into the Ganges, which will perhaps allow them to reach Moksha (Nirvana) and release them from the series of terrestrial lives full of suffering.
On the first day we were here, we found ourselves at the main burning ghat, Manikarnika, just 5 minutes away from our hostel. Men stood around chanting and adding wood to the funeral pyres where bodies are layed, tightly wrapped in cloth. I can see the shapes of the corpses perfectly...the heads, shoulders, bony hips, legs and feet. Who were these people? Men, women, or children? However wonderful or miserable their lives were, they are now reduced to shapes bound in bright red cloth. I feel incredibly awkward. I want to take a picture to remember how strange this scene is, but that would be completely disrespectful. We are standing on the edge of the bonfire area, gawking at them like it's some sort of exhibit. There's not really any way that we can fit in here, like many places in India. I'm so curious and fascinated by this ritual, but cannot bring myself to shift around uncomfortably any longer, while families send their loved ones to salvation or another, hopefully better life. So, we wander off down the dark and putrid alleys of Varanasi.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
Another train adventure
En Transit from New Jalpaiguri to Varanasi:
After our final meal in Darjeeling, a scrumptious Tibetan medley of steamed momos (Tibetan dumplings), brothy vegetable soup, fresh apple juice as thick as applesauce and soy sauce that tasted a little too much like molasses, my weary cohorts Estathea, Sara, Cecilia and myself crammed ourselves yet again into a dusty jeep, and made off down the winding mountain road into a pitch black, sultry night. I don't remember much of the jeep ride, because I defied the laws of nature and drifted into some semblance of sleep, waking every few minutes when we hit a bump or swerved around a corner and my skull slammed into the seat in front of me. What I do remember is Cecilia having a brilliant, hour long conversation almost entirely in Hindi with our friendly jeep driver, and feeling incredibly happy for some unknown reason, stroking my bloated stomach in a post-momo stupor.
At the train station, we watched the train pull up, but after running up and down the length of the train and realizing that our car was absent, we started to panic slightly. Poising ourselves so we could grab on to one of the cars should the train decide to leave, we stood nervously on the train platform with several other confused looking white backpackers. We soon discovered that we had no reason to fret. Our car, accompanied by a small engine but nothing else, came lurching up the track as though it had suddenly realized that the party couldn't start unless it was present. The beautiful thing about India is that things always, always work themselves out, in some way or another. I'm still undecided as to whether this phenomenon is reserved to India, or whether it's simply about the attitude one chooses to adopt in life.
The train. We're sharing our compartment with a very adorable middle-aged couple. The woman is extraordinarily petite, and has the most delicate face which is camoflouged by the enormous glasses she wears. She caresses her right arm, which is in a cast, and is wrapped in a red cardigan. I just want to give her a hug. I don't, not just because that would incredibly awkward in this land of minimal physical contact, but also because I'm fairly certain a big hug might actually crush her. I watch them interact. Her husband spends a great deal of time setting up one of the bunks for his wife, and then makes a meager, cramped bed for himself on the bunk above, with all three of their suitcases.
Exhausted, I slumped down onto the nearest bunk and pass out. I woke up several times in the middle of the night to very strange goings-on. At around midnight, I waddle over to the bathroom with a full bladder, dressed in my ridiculous cold-train outfit of long underwear and a hoodie. I stood waiting for the bathroom with a tiny adolescent boy dressed in an impeccable, crisp, British-style school uniform. He stares at me for a while as I attempt to wipe the sleep out of my eyes but only succeed in wiping mascara all over my face. Then he decides to practice his English with me, which is perfect. Finally an old, bent over woman in a sari comes out of the bathroom muttering something under her breath and shaking her head. Behind her, through the flapping door of the bathroom, I see feces smeared all over the squat toilet and the rest of the tiny bathroom. To keep from vomiting, I leave the darling little school boy to handle that situation, and I stumble in the next direction to see what the other bathroom is like. Making it down the aisle is not exactly easy, as there are literally people everywhere, and they are all staring at me in the most unnerving fashion. Down the aisle a ways, I could see an almost naked man who was being beaten and yelled at by a much larger, dressed man. Not wanting to get involved with that scene at all, I turned directly around and decided peeing was not that important.
Back in my bunk, I attempted to turn off the chaos by shoving my earplugs in and putting on my eye mask. I woke up several more times to shouting. The obnoxiously bright flourescent lights stayed on all night. Every time I woke up, I sensed people staring at me, and looked up to see at least 4 pairs of eyes glued to me. Really guys? Is watching a white woman sleep really that fascinating, that it can keep you entertained all night? Guess so.
Morning time. There are people everywhere. Our train snakes so slowly through the northern state of Bihar, that we get fairly long glimpses of towns as we pass by them. Poverty is extremely apparent, and I can feel the enormity of it even from the train. Each station we stop at looks like a refugee camp, with entire families of three or four generations laying on thin fabric on the ground. A young woman with a little naked boy on her hip walks over to my window. She has at least 8 little girls surrounding her. They are all so beautiful, with their bright colors, gold nose rings and bindis. They are all smiles as they shove their grubby little hands between the bars of the train window, pleading for money and food. I give them my sweet roll from a bakery in Darjeeling, and they run away giggling.
As we continue through Bihar, I grow more and more disgusted with the amount of trash on the train tracks. The tracks make up the humble belly of India, thanklessly digesting the thousands of plastic chai cups, empty bags of chips, food containers of every shape and size, millions of water bottles, urine, all shades of human fecal matter possible, and the ubiquitous blood-red paan spit. We pass village after village of sad looking shanty settlements, bony thin men and boys, women with naked skinny babies on their hips, all toiling away around the filthy railroad tracks. Forming manure patties out of their hands to dry in the sun, chipping away at rock, digging holes, hauling materials in baskets on their heads, they are all forced to work in the trash trough of India's middle and upper classes as we jostle through the otherwise beautiful country-side. I try to save my small trash pile (a couple chai cups, a plastic water bottle, some paper bags from the pastries we bought in Darjeeling) but the chuckling old toothless man across from me grabs it all and tosses it out the window. He thinks he's doing me a favor.
Sometimes I just want to scream, "COME ON INDIA. Get with it. Seriously."
After our final meal in Darjeeling, a scrumptious Tibetan medley of steamed momos (Tibetan dumplings), brothy vegetable soup, fresh apple juice as thick as applesauce and soy sauce that tasted a little too much like molasses, my weary cohorts Estathea, Sara, Cecilia and myself crammed ourselves yet again into a dusty jeep, and made off down the winding mountain road into a pitch black, sultry night. I don't remember much of the jeep ride, because I defied the laws of nature and drifted into some semblance of sleep, waking every few minutes when we hit a bump or swerved around a corner and my skull slammed into the seat in front of me. What I do remember is Cecilia having a brilliant, hour long conversation almost entirely in Hindi with our friendly jeep driver, and feeling incredibly happy for some unknown reason, stroking my bloated stomach in a post-momo stupor.
At the train station, we watched the train pull up, but after running up and down the length of the train and realizing that our car was absent, we started to panic slightly. Poising ourselves so we could grab on to one of the cars should the train decide to leave, we stood nervously on the train platform with several other confused looking white backpackers. We soon discovered that we had no reason to fret. Our car, accompanied by a small engine but nothing else, came lurching up the track as though it had suddenly realized that the party couldn't start unless it was present. The beautiful thing about India is that things always, always work themselves out, in some way or another. I'm still undecided as to whether this phenomenon is reserved to India, or whether it's simply about the attitude one chooses to adopt in life.
The train. We're sharing our compartment with a very adorable middle-aged couple. The woman is extraordinarily petite, and has the most delicate face which is camoflouged by the enormous glasses she wears. She caresses her right arm, which is in a cast, and is wrapped in a red cardigan. I just want to give her a hug. I don't, not just because that would incredibly awkward in this land of minimal physical contact, but also because I'm fairly certain a big hug might actually crush her. I watch them interact. Her husband spends a great deal of time setting up one of the bunks for his wife, and then makes a meager, cramped bed for himself on the bunk above, with all three of their suitcases.
Exhausted, I slumped down onto the nearest bunk and pass out. I woke up several times in the middle of the night to very strange goings-on. At around midnight, I waddle over to the bathroom with a full bladder, dressed in my ridiculous cold-train outfit of long underwear and a hoodie. I stood waiting for the bathroom with a tiny adolescent boy dressed in an impeccable, crisp, British-style school uniform. He stares at me for a while as I attempt to wipe the sleep out of my eyes but only succeed in wiping mascara all over my face. Then he decides to practice his English with me, which is perfect. Finally an old, bent over woman in a sari comes out of the bathroom muttering something under her breath and shaking her head. Behind her, through the flapping door of the bathroom, I see feces smeared all over the squat toilet and the rest of the tiny bathroom. To keep from vomiting, I leave the darling little school boy to handle that situation, and I stumble in the next direction to see what the other bathroom is like. Making it down the aisle is not exactly easy, as there are literally people everywhere, and they are all staring at me in the most unnerving fashion. Down the aisle a ways, I could see an almost naked man who was being beaten and yelled at by a much larger, dressed man. Not wanting to get involved with that scene at all, I turned directly around and decided peeing was not that important.
Back in my bunk, I attempted to turn off the chaos by shoving my earplugs in and putting on my eye mask. I woke up several more times to shouting. The obnoxiously bright flourescent lights stayed on all night. Every time I woke up, I sensed people staring at me, and looked up to see at least 4 pairs of eyes glued to me. Really guys? Is watching a white woman sleep really that fascinating, that it can keep you entertained all night? Guess so.
Morning time. There are people everywhere. Our train snakes so slowly through the northern state of Bihar, that we get fairly long glimpses of towns as we pass by them. Poverty is extremely apparent, and I can feel the enormity of it even from the train. Each station we stop at looks like a refugee camp, with entire families of three or four generations laying on thin fabric on the ground. A young woman with a little naked boy on her hip walks over to my window. She has at least 8 little girls surrounding her. They are all so beautiful, with their bright colors, gold nose rings and bindis. They are all smiles as they shove their grubby little hands between the bars of the train window, pleading for money and food. I give them my sweet roll from a bakery in Darjeeling, and they run away giggling.
As we continue through Bihar, I grow more and more disgusted with the amount of trash on the train tracks. The tracks make up the humble belly of India, thanklessly digesting the thousands of plastic chai cups, empty bags of chips, food containers of every shape and size, millions of water bottles, urine, all shades of human fecal matter possible, and the ubiquitous blood-red paan spit. We pass village after village of sad looking shanty settlements, bony thin men and boys, women with naked skinny babies on their hips, all toiling away around the filthy railroad tracks. Forming manure patties out of their hands to dry in the sun, chipping away at rock, digging holes, hauling materials in baskets on their heads, they are all forced to work in the trash trough of India's middle and upper classes as we jostle through the otherwise beautiful country-side. I try to save my small trash pile (a couple chai cups, a plastic water bottle, some paper bags from the pastries we bought in Darjeeling) but the chuckling old toothless man across from me grabs it all and tosses it out the window. He thinks he's doing me a favor.
Sometimes I just want to scream, "COME ON INDIA. Get with it. Seriously."
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