Varanasi Baby: Part 1
Varanasi, the city of death.
According to Hinduism, this is THE place where one should die. This city has been on my bucket list since I was a young girl. A bit grim for a teenager, I know. Yet I always felt the city held some meaning to me. I had a picture of its ghats as my phone’s screensaver since I had a phone with a screensaver. Reading stories about the city would spark something in me. I couldn’t explain it.
Finally, my teenage dream came true last year.
I land pretty late, glad to have fixed a taxi in advance so I can enjoy the ride and relax. Silly me. I didn't consider it was Shivaratri, the annual Hindu festival celebrating Shiva, the god protecting the city. What I thought was going to be an easy car ride to the centre turned out to be a hostage handover. Or so, that’s how it felt.
It's 1am, Shivaratri just started, and the city is on fire. Cars cannot get through the centre, my driver stops on the side of the road. I watch a family of 5 laying on a bed right in the middle of the street. They are sharing food.
A man knocks at the car window, with a gesture tells me to come out. "Hurry" he says with his hands. All the years of conditioning screaming in my head "red flag, red flag, red flag", yet I step out anyways.
He swings my backpack over his shoulder and takes off. Fast. Zig-zagging through people eating, sleeping, screaming, shitting, doing business, doing life. He jumps onto a rickshaw, lifts my backpack (I travel light, yet I notice my backpack must be heavier than the rickshaw driver) and gestures me to follow. My ass barely landing on the seat before we are already moving.
Where to? I hope the guesthouse. Till now my "guide" hasn't spoken a word to me. But this is a game of trust, so be it.
My eyes and ears are flipping out, there is so much to take in, in so little time. I don't have enough sensory capacity to catch all life we are passing through. I'm overwhelmed.
Before I know it, we are being dropped off. We walk fast, no talking, no smiling. In a rush. I barely can keep up with my guide, I hold to the strap of my backpack which he insists to carry. Anxious? No. Everyone is celebrating, no one seems to notice me. It's Shivaratri. Party time.
Many dark alleys later, pretending not to notice the sticky, smelly puddles my feet stumble through, we arrive at the guesthouse. With a smile, my guide (whom I later found out to be the guesthouse's handyman) hands me over to Akash, the manager. "How was the trip, miss?" he asks. I can't say yet, I have no words. My brain didn’t catch up yet with my eyes and ears.
Akash shows me my room, which, for some magical reason, is perfectly quiet. A colourful place, surrounded by life. I pass out.
I wake up the next morning, taking it slow. Breakfast on the rooftop, aloo paratha and chai. I look at the Ganges through the fence that surrounds the rooftop "to protect from the birds, miss" when a monkey jumps on the fence and steals my paratha. Alright, we share.
Time to go out, unsure what to expect. I step outside and make it to the ghat. So little time and yet the amount of inputs to process is infinite. Countless blessings, my forehead painted over and over with chandan by sadhus I cross on the street (whether I want it or not, is irrelevant), bells ringing everywhere, chanting, invoking the gods. Shiva. Incense burning. People walking, sitting, lying down. People exhausted by the heat, people bathing in the Ganges, people seeking purification. People eating, drinking, smoking. People waking up, people sleeping. People living. People dying. People.
I sit on the ghat and watch the city going by. I feel at home. It's a strange feeling. I have been here for half a day and it feels like home already. It's all too natural. Being comfortable among the chaos of this city, in between people living and dying, side by side. I remember. I have been here before.
My senses exhausted, my brain overloaded. I make my way back to the guesthouse for a break.
I walk up the ghat that leads to the guesthouse and realize it's the exact same one from my screensaver. Figures.
I look forward to kicking off my shoes and lying down a little. "Sit, sit!" Akash shouts as soon as I step through the door. He wants to know ALL about my day, so I tell him ALL I have seen, while sipping one more chai. He wants a selfie with me. "Miss, you are pretty in real life, but you are really ugly in pictures." Charming. That's my chance to excuse myself and go take a nap. A moment to quiet down, while the city outside is loud, alive.
I have never seen more life than in the city of death.
To be continued..
