Varanasi - The City of Life

Nittu gets us up at the butt crack of dawn for a sunrise event. We get to the ghat all the way on the end of the city and hike down to the water and hop in this huge rowboat. It is a beautiful and peaceful morning. It was really special to see the sunrise over the mighty Ganges. I feel like a voyeur (not that has EVER stopped me) watching the "faithful" bathe in the water. I felt a little ashamed at first as I am watching someones sacred, religious rituals. I thought how would I feel if someone was observing my spiritual practises? I thought if I believed as they did, I wouldn't mind. The great thing about our group is we are so small, that it was like a group of friends on this boat we had to ourselves. We were floating along one of the worlds greatest rivers, just enjoying each others company while being basked in the spirit of this mighty city at sunrise, it doesn't get any better than this. What an amazing introduction to Varanasi,the Ganges and the Ghats.

What can I say about Varanasi? The city of the dead? I have heard more opinions about this particular city than opinions I got of India herself. YES it is crazy busy, YES, I am stared at every where I go! YES, there are touts at every turn, but HELLO this is INDIA! My favorite was a guy from one of my tours said he found it SHOCKING, and his first question to me was "so, how do you feel about seeing dead bodies?" I said uh ok? He said he was walking down the street and saw an arm fly off of a funeral pyre! I thought Man! That is HUGE and I also thought if they are burning bodies it must reek! OK in all fairness to him, it would be a little shocking to see a dead body floating down the river, which I heard is known to happen.

Now the truth: Varanasi is one of the oldest living cities in the world with history dating back over 2000 years. It is called by many names, one previously being Benares, it is also known as Kashi, (City of Life), the holy city of India and the city of learning. Built along the sacred Ganges, Varanasi, to the Hindus is an auspicious place to die and that bathing in the holy waters washes away ones sins. It is also spiritually significant to Buddhists and the Jains as well. The big deal to us Westerners is the ghats. A ghat is a set of cement stairs built along the cliff side that lead into the water. In some places the whole section of cliff side is nothing but stairs and in other places you have to walk a bit to get to them. It runs almost the entire length of Varanasi itself. Some of the ghats are for the cremation ritual where they have piles of wood that is used as a pyre to burn bodies. I know it sounds bad but when you think about cremation which releases the soul, freeing it to inhabit another body and when you see a pyre burning surrounded by love ones at sunset, it is actually very beautiful. As for smells, Jasmine and sandalwood filled the air. It was a special thing to see and I feel blessed to have taken part of the rituals on the Ganges.