Along the bank of the Ganges River, flames bellowed. A barefootyoung man, his skin stained black with soot, tended to the funeralpyre. Using a six-foot wooden pole, he poked at the embers, trying tokeep the fire burning.
Sitting beneath massive, two-story stacks of firewood, we couldsee the ancient city of Varanasi at the sacred river's edge. Menbathed and meditated while women slapped wet bed sheets against therocks. Mangy dogs picked at piles of garbage and cow dung.
Kids peddled postcards; their fathers hawked boat rides. Thoughdeath was literally in the air, it seemed everybody had something tosell.
Varanasi's blatant juxtaposition of life and death, of custom andcommerce, of mystery and filth, could not have been more foreign tous. And, taking it all in, we could not have been more delighted.
Death, of course, is part of life. But in Varanasi, considered theholiest city in India, it's part of daily life.
A quiet crowd of friends and relatives of the deceased hadgathered at the ritual burning at the Harishchandra Ghat (templebath) to bid farewell. But they did not mourn. Nobody cried. Even thedeceased woman's son, his head ceremoniously shaved for the occasion,remained wholly composed.
"This area is about respect, not sadness," volunteered a frail oldman crouched nearby wearing a soiled blue cardigan sweater.
To our left, the Ganges's gentle curve was accented by an imposingwall of ornate, crumbling temples. Dozens of other ghats --essentially long flights of stone steps -- tumbled into the river,fading into the auburn haze. The sun shone bright orange above thepolluted horizon. Temple bells clanged incessantly. We could feel theheat from the fire.
Likened to both Mecca and Jerusalem, Varanasi is one of theworld's oldest cities. In 530 B.C., the Buddha preached his firstsermon after enlightenment near Varanasi, but by then the city wasalready 500 years old. According to Hindu mythology, it was foundedby the god Shiva, lord of destruction and creation, and is thephysical and spiritual center of the Hindu universe. Today, the cityis home to more than 1.4 million people and an estimated 1,500temples and shrines, attracting pilgrims from all over India.
Hindu devotees believe that anyone who dies within the city limitsattains instant moksha, or redemption, freeing the soul from thecycle of birth, death and rebirth. Fortunes are spent transportingbodies to be cremated. Hospices full of sick, elderly and dyingHindus fight for riverside real estate with temples, crematoriumsand, lately, Internet cafes.
"Varanasi is strange and foreign, even for many Indians," atelevision producer later admitted to us on the train back to Delhi.
The Ganges, Hindus believe, flows directly from Heaven, washingaway the sins of mortals. Its waters are called amrita -- the "nectarof immortality" -- and are considered a sort of holy tonic, bringingpurity to the living and salvation to the dead. By the thousands,pilgrims and residents come to the ghats for their daily ritualablutions and to bathe, pray, drink and leave offerings at one of theglobe's most polluted rivers.
Two days earlier, during the 16-hour train ride from Agra toVaranasi, a university professor had piqued our interest about theGanges (or Ganga, as it's pronounced in Hindi). "If you take a glassof regular tap water and a glass of Ganga water and let them sit,eventually, bacteria will grow in the tap water," he said.
But he wasn't implying that the Ganges water was purer. "There areso many toxins in the Ganga that even bacteria can't grow," heexplained.
The professor, who claimed he wasn't particularly religious,nevertheless told us he bathed in the Ganges several times a year,despite the toxins.
"As a scientist," he told us, "I know it is dirty. But as a Hindu,I know it is clean -- spiritually."
The fire continued to blaze. Nearby, skinny, nearly naked holy mencalled sadhus smeared white ash on their faces and bodies and smokedmarijuana. A melange of refuse and city runoff oozed down theriverbank and into the water. An intense-looking man with a shavedhead and mouthful of bright red betel nut -- chewed in India astobacco is in the States -- approached us without hesitation.
"Where you from?" he asked, taking a seat on the stone steps. Itwas a question we'd come to expect, a preamble to the inevitablesales pitch.
"You must pay to sit here," he announced, introducing a tactic wehad not yet encountered. He gurgled as he spoke, attempting to keepthe wad of saliva and betel nut from dripping down his chin. "Onlyfamily can sit here."
The pyre-tender poked at the fire again and an eruption of sparksdanced toward the golden sky. We were confused. And, sitting beforethis sacred ritual, more than 8,000 miles from home, we were afraid.But we were also skeptical. We turned to a group of family membersseated below us and asked, "Is it okay if we sit here?"
"Yes, yes, no problem, no problem," urged a well-dressed man wholater identified himself as the brother of the deceased. As we turnedtoward the obnoxious salesman, he grinned and walked away.
Before long, the woman's body before us was reduced to a heap ofdust and burning embers -- another layer of memories stacked on theancient riverbank. Pushed into the holy river, her remnants spreadslowly, beautifully, into the murky brown current.
Strands of marigold flowers and bobbing chunks of charred wooddrifted past. And then four chanting men carried another body down tothe river's edge. It was lashed to a stretcher-like platform andwrapped in bright yellow fabric. They placed it on another stack ofwood and another son scampered down the steps, carrying a flame fromthe temple. All over again, we were mesmerized.
Beating drums pulsed from a nearby ghat, where a large crowd ofdevotees and tourists had gathered to watch a Brahmin priest performhis nightly ceremony. Hundreds of floating candles set in cups madeof dried reeds sprinkled their flickering light across the darkenedwater.
We turned to take a final look at the Harishchandra Ghat. Thefires were still burning. Sprinting nimbly across the mud andnarrowly avoiding a lounging buffalo, a group of laughing childrenlaunched a homemade kite in the smoky drafts.
Varanasi is 485 miles southeast of Delhi and is accessible byplane, bus or train. Several daily flights ($130 one way; travel time1 1/2 hours) go from Delhi to Babatpur Airport, about 14 miles northwest of Varanasi. A first-class ticket on the express train fromDelhi to Varanasi (16 hours) costs $47. For more information, contactIndia's tourist office at 800-953-9399, www.tourisminindia.com.
David Thomsen and Dan Weinshenker are freelance writers in SanFrancisco and Denver, respectively.
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