Varanasi Days pt2 13-23 March ’18
shanti shanti
Photo by me with Canon7D
Life on ghats goes by shanti-shanti. All seems very calm and peaceful when compared to any other place in town. No rush around here; yet a variegation of activities goes about:
There are people who swipe the ghats, those who repair boats and those who sell all sort of bits and pieces: flowers, incenses, doubtable sacred objects, beedi, indulgences, silk, hashish, and obviously, chai, many many chai wallah.
In the mornings someone hangs washed clothes to dry in the hot sun after they have been washed in the Holy River; miraculously they do appear clean.
Many other people seem to simply stroll around, observing life passing by.
Crippled or maimed beggars ask, not too insistently, for some spare coins; certainly not as persistently as the various orang-clad Sadhus or even worse as the (supposedly wealthy) Brahmins who charge a large price for their blessing.
Firstborns get their hair cut according to the fashion of the Mundan, as a sign of purification needed for the cremation ceremony [..]
Kids, rigorously barefoot, play to smooth their pants by using downhill ramps as an improvised slides: they come down, sitting on their arses, wearing their pants out.
Others kids, probably from wealthier family, play cricket; doubtlessly the real religion of this country, the single thing that really bring people together.
Sadhus, Babas and others alike try to engage in some kind of connection with any passerby, targeting tourists looking like; using all sort of tricks and means in their hats: searching for eye contact, flashing happy, cheerful, well-chosen smiles; gently bowing their heads, reciting a chant; all with the same purpose: manage to earn few rupees out of their prey.
The more intrepid, the cheeky ones -and they are many- invite the onlooker to take a picture of them and then request some money in exchange. Bastards! I was tricked too. Karma.
Animals have their fair share too: omnipresent cows, unfaltering goats and feral dogs are free to roam around and carry out their needs as they please. Some of them; particularly cows, are adorn with marigold garlands: a gesture to honour the holiness of the animal, which becomes secondary if the cow begins eating anything that comes from a vendor stand.
Walk around and it won’t be hard to bump into several small temples dedicate to certain deities; surely you’d find lingams, many many lingams. After all it is the city of Shiva.
But what really drew me here, are the ghats of Manikarnika and Harishchandra; where burned corps are dispose into the revered waters of Ganga Ma, or Mother Ganges.
#404 ciao
Cribo Vagabond 