Varanasi, the Eternal City

On Friday night, Daniel and I cabbed it over to the train station to make our way from Kolkata to Varanasi for the weekend. On the way over I discovered that I, in my infinite brilliance, had got the time of the train wrong so we arrived at the station at 8:20 PM , 20 minutes after it pulled out of the station. Great, just great. But we didn't give up hope, and went in to see if we could some how, by some grace of God, book a later train. The Kolkata train station is a beast unto itself, a mammoth thing that swallows you whole.

Eventually we got to someone who told us there was a train later that night, at 11:45 and to go to the booking office. After making our way through the labyrinth to the booking office, I then had to battle my way through 50 Indian men to even talk to someone about booking another ticket. People here don't ques for things... you just get into this pile of people and try to push your way to whatever your trying to get to. As soon as you feel like your close, in swoop three more men in front of you so it feels like one step forward is countered by three steps back. I was getting pretty exasperated, between the chaos of this booking thing and the dejection of knowing that I had so royally messed up the train thing to begin with. In this moment of weakness though, I met an older American gentleman, also trying to battle his way through the line, who said he and his wife were trying to get to Varanasi too. He took pity on me in my plight, but also gave me heart to carry on the struggle. It so happened had an extra set of tickets. It was for an earlier train, and 2nd class (which is pretty classy). He tried to get them to just switch the tickets over to Daniel and I, but they would have none of this due to some technicality. In the end, I just bought another set of tickets at the window, but it was so kind of this guy to try and help us out that in the end I was happy to have the opportunity to meet him and his wife.

So, while things certainly didn't work out as planned, we got our Varanasi tickets, and at 11:45 boarded the train. A million hours later, with the call of "chai, chai, garam chai" ringing in our ears from the constant repetition on the train, we arrived in Varanasi.

Mark Twain once wrote, "Benares (Varanasi) is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together." I think it is probably one of the most important cities in the world. First of all, it is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. Also, its indescribably sacred to Hindus, as well as Buddhists and Jains.

The main part of Varanasi, know as the old city, is a vast labyrinthine network of narrow streets running alongside the Ganges crammed with shops and innumerable temples. Between the city and the water are the ghats, which is an area of stairs leading down to the shore. There are over a hundred ghats along the whole stretch of the city. Most ghats are cites of bathing, but others are for cremation. It is thought that anyone who dies and is cremated here will be released from the cycle of maya and transmigration. Our hostel was right next to Meer Ghat, one of the cremation ghats. While it is fine for tourists to go out on these ghats to watch the ceremonies and the burning pyres, one can't help but feel a little intrusive and out of place. It was remarkable how many bodies were carried through the narrow street next to our hotel, covered, flowered, and carried by a host of chanting men down to the water. It seemed to happen at least a 4 or 5 times an hour.



The every morning and evening there are Pujas (sacrificial ceremonies) along the water. The most spectacular of these is performed at Dashashwamdeh Ghat, reportedly created by the god Brahma to welcome Shiva as the primary deity of the city. Our two nights there we watched the evening puja, Aarti, which is dedication of fire and light in this instance to the Ganga, Shiva, Surya (Sun), Agni (fire), and most importantly the singular divinity of the universe. It was definitely a spectacle. There were seven or eight young priests lined up along the river bank on elevated platforms. Also, singing and music projected through a sound system. Lots of flowers, lots of incense, and lots of fire. I thought it was pretty amazing. Many people take boats out to view the ceremony from the river, and release little floating leaf boats filled with flowers, candles, and prayers onto the water. Its a tremendous thing to see all the little candles floating on the water, hundreds and hundreds of them.




Our time in Varanasi was spent mostly just wandering along the water watching people and boats, cremations, boys playing cricket, the goats, cows, water buffalo, dogs. Also, there are a couple of really choice tourist cafes one of which is a German Bakery where I got an amazing Cappuchino, definitely a treat after all the Nescafe.

On Monday morning we woke up at 4AM to begin the next leg of our journey, to a very different sort of place: Darjeeling. Our train left at 5:45 in the morning, and didn't get to our stop, New Jalpaiguri, until after midnight. It isn't even that far away, maybe 730km, but the damn train just kept stopping, half the time in the middle of a field somewhere! It was a long ride and we were definitely happy to step off that train, though it meant staying in the town of Siliguri for the night, a pretty unimpressive place. From there we got a jeep the next day to Darjeeling, but I should write more about that whole journey in another instalment. Suffice it to say, we are in Darjeeling and it is amazing here.