Today has been very full. Began at 8am with morning devotions, then Merv and I took 2 sessions each in the morning. After lunch - rice (again), very spicy daal (again), and curried cauliflower (again) - we went to Banaras, the holiest Hindu city in the whole of India.
Banaras has to be seen to be believed. It is the religious and cultural capital of this vast nation.
The Hindu Kumbh Mela in 2001 took place not far from here in Allahabad. The Maha Kumbh Mela, or Grand Pitcher Festival, takes place every 12 years in Northern India and sees millions of devotees bathe in the Ganges to purify their sins. It is the largest gathering of humanity in one place on any one occasion - approximately 20 million people. Here are some pictures from 2001. This website promises you a multi-sensory experience of that event.
Our reason for coming to Banaras after a busy day's preaching was to get our flight tickets from Varanasi to Delhi and collect email & E-tickets from the Internet Cafe in the Surya Hotel (it is a superb hotel that costs 300 rupees per night - about £4 - for a single room). Once we had finished our business, we went on a very unexpected sightseeing tour of the city with Dr John and our driver Suji. The poverty and squalor in Banaras is beyond anything I have ever seen. Chaos and noise and foul smells and people everywhere.
As dusk fell, we went to the banks of the Ganges and sat in the fabric shop belonging to Tony Beri, an Indian who is incredibly cosmopolitan. We took off our shoes and sat crosslegged in the small whitewashed room with Tony and a French couple who were travelling and sightseeing. We drank hot, sweet chai and spoke in French - in India! Tony then showed us material and scarves and sheets and saris of so many different colours and patterns - silks and satins of great beauty and artistry. Both Merv and I bought some for our wives and daughters!
After a very interesting conversation about what we believed and why we were in India, Tony then took us to the part of the Ganges where cremations were taking place - not in coffins, but people laying their dead on the banks of the river and on the ghat (stone steps leading down to the water) and piling wood around and on top of them. Watching burning corpses is quite sobering - the smell, the sight of burning flesh, the mourners... It was almost like watching small bonfires or camp fires - but with bodies on top. They scatter some of their ashes on the river and drink it as it floats away. The Ganges is filthy with excrement, dead bits, rubbish, mud and dust, and the leftovers of people bathing, washing and 'cleaning' clothes in the water. Drinking it is unthinkable - but people do it because it is supposedly the holiest river in the world.
Some websites paint a very picturesque and cosy picture of this setting - my experience was sobering and solemn. Stepping over the dead and inhaling the ashes of the partially cremated was something I will never forget.
Posted by pencils at February 2, 2004 06:53 PM | TrackBack