The Oldest City in the World

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.