November 2023
The Burning Gates of Banaras
A Sadguru sitting at the foot of a Ghat on the water’s edge.
Welcome to Varanasi, one of the oldest cities in the world. Built along the sacred Ganges river, it’s the spiritual capital of India dating back to 11th Century BC. To say this city is steeped in history would be a gross understatement.
I check in to my budget hotel, dump bags, and head towards the river. Urban planning wasn’t really a thing three thousand years ago, so cars are stopped a kilometer before the waters edge. Like an ever flowing vascular system, the bustling roads, the arteries, constrict down into the historic network of streets before further narrowing into capillary-like alleys so tight daylight seems to disappear. The air here is heavy, not just with the smells of street food, incense, oil candles, and fires but there’s a different viscous energy in the air. I see daylight piercing through the aperture of one of the many Ghats (gates), and exit the thick city atmosphere through this portal as a breeze and bright sunlight hits my face as I resurface. The giant steep stone staircase whips vertigo into my legs as I cast my gaze down to the waters edge and then along the six kilometer promenade disappearing into the distance. Reflecting over the vast city in front of me, I realise I’ve left the land of man, and entered a different, sacred world. For many this is the final stop on the journey of life.
Friends play chess at the top of one of the Ghats.
The waters edge is alight with colour and activity as funeral pyres billow smoke in the distance. I stayed for a week in Varanasi and every moment of each day something different appeared around every corner. Space and time seem to dissolve as you become engulfed by the city that never sleeps. Whether midday, midnight or even waking up at 4am to catch the sunrise, the river bank is constantly teeming with life. Even bees and ants give the workers time to sleep, but not here. Compare and contrast this to an eerie, silent western burial ground or crematorium - a single raven cawing in the distance - and this place really is otherworldly.
A man combs his hair after washing in the Ganges and preparing his offerings prior to a personal ritual on the river bank at 5:30am
Sunrise Yoga and children swimming on the banks of the Ganges.
A man polishes his brass pots using the mud as an abrasive, cricket, and washing in the Ganges.
Take a boat ride down the Ganga and get a different perspective from the water. This popular tourist activity is one of the many revenue streams for the locals and is growing rapidly. Thousands of boats line the waters edge, with owners heckling you in for a ride. Captain Sunil a Dalit local, born and raised in Varanasi spends his days selling bout tours at one of the burning Ghats. His crew starts the diesel engine by hand crank, and our vessel splutters into life. The final punters convinced to board pile on, and we depart, chugging our way down the river.
Sunil explains how his life has changed drastically as the city has grown. He and his family bought out of house and home to make way for a vast new temple that displaced 600 inhabitants. To earn a living selling boat tours Sunil must sleep on deck to avoid the commute as his family now live many kilometers away on the outskirts of the city.
After a stunning ride and panoramic city views the sun begins to set, and the smoke filled hazy sky creates a muted backdrop for the silhouettes of hundreds of pigeons and swallows as they take to the sky. It’s time to head ashore as the city starts to take on its nighttime guise…
Crowds flock on mass the waters edge of the central Ghat for a daily ceremony at dusk, Ganga Aarti. The ceremony is performed by priests on the Ghats and involves lighting wicks soaked in oil as an offering to the deitites. Foreheads are painted with a Tilak, colourful marking made by hand using vibrant ingredients like tumeric, and pressed on using a metal stamp. It is interesting to watch so much money being exchanged for these material offerings and adornments.
At night the riverbank lights up with ceremonial activities, and shipbuilders create new double decker crafts for tourist excursions.
Wander down from central town to Manikarnika Ghat, the burning Gate - and a sinister sight emerges from the darkness. Sixty continuously burning funeral pyres light up the nightscape. In Hinduism it is believed that there is a cycle of birth and re-birth. The body is re-incarnated after death to endure the cycle of life on Earth again. However, if the dead are bought here, to the river banks of the Ganges, and burned in one of the many pyres their cycle is broken and the soul is finally liberated and can reach communion with God.
The fires here, have been burning for over 2500 years and never been left to extinguish. An impressive operation, with wood sellers and pyre builders continuously carrying logs down to the waters edge from the town, or up from delivery boats to prepare the fires. They work though the day and night and can often be found sleeping on the walls around the temples when exhaustion finally catches up with them. To be cremated here is an expensive privilege, the lower classes at the bottom near the waters edge and the higher classes up inside the elevated pyre house.
There’s a lot of disorder, particularly at the burning Ghats. hoards of people in a narrow space all off to different destinations. Every few minutes a new body is bought down from the streets above to be dipped in the Ganga before cremation. Carried by several people on a wooden stretcher, the body is covered and adorned with vibrant cloths and flowers. It’s a game of hopscotch to sidestep around roaring flames, mounds of ash, several chickens, a man pouring chai, the rear end of a cow, a charred skeletal foot poking out the end of a pyre....
I narrowly avoid collision with a man carrying a mountain of logs on his head and escape to the safety of the stone steps away from the action. Observing you can see there’s order amongst the chaos, everyone knows their role and are busy stoking this well oiled machine. A recipe for ascension that’s remained unchanged for millenia.
An unnamed friend.
An exhausted pyre builder.
After a week in Varanasi, sinister scenes become serene. I learn the City’s original name, Banaras. It has a softer, sweeter tone to it’s modern title from British rule. The ghostly faces that once flickered in the flames, now familiar friends, with a twinkle in their eye, unthanked guardians to the next world. A local boy who’m I chatted to throughout the week brings me a paper cup of chai, we sit in silence, no words are required.
Looking around at the spectators, flames reflected in their eyes like tiny candles. I reflect too, the inevitability of the end for us all and not something to be feared, but to be revered.
Pyre builders unload wood from a boat, working through the night to ensure the fire that has been burning for 3000 years continues