My First Corpse. Welcome to Varanasi!

I’m now hovering above 38 hours without sleep. After a four hour bus ride, two flights, and a sleepless overnight in the grossest airport I have ever encountered, I am touching down in Varanasi, City of Light and public cremation. I find out from a Dutch guy on the flight (who spits when he talks and apparently doesn’t notice) that there is a huge festival in Varanasi this week and I am instantly regretting not booking a room in advance. Leaving any train/bus station or airport in India is chaotic enough, but not knowing where I am going, or if there is even a bed waiting for me at the end, is a trial I am not looking forward to. 

Outside the airport is a loud crowd of touters, all eager to earn some commission by hijacking me and taking me to their hotel of choice. I pick the frailest one, my logic being that if he attacks me, at least I have a fighting chance. He pulls me through the crowd, calling me his friend and talking on his cell in a language I don’t even recognize as Hindi, it must be another, even less familiar dialect. Great. He takes me to a rusty car (the jig is up, now I know he’s not a taxi driver), and the largest man I have ever seen emerges from the driver seat and plucks my bag off my shoulder like it’s a flake of dandruff, and throws it in the trunk. Before he slams the lid down I glimpse a long black canvas bag and a length of rope. Fantastic.

We are driving along the highway, a typical rural highway, but this time we are crawling along. The giant behind the wheel is the most careful driver ever, and rarely uses his horn. He doesn’t speak during the drive, but the frail “Kempo” in the passenger seat is still on the phone, obviously having trouble locating a room for me but reassuring me with every hang up: “No problem madam, I find you a room. And if not, you come and stay with me!" *laugh uproariously* Ummmmm....!

Some are waiting for a modeling contract before death... on the Ganges

I’m imagining the various ways these two could kill/rape/rob me when we crawl into a city that looks older than dirt. The sun is setting and a strange calm comes over me. Suddenly I don’t care if I die here, because the city is lighting up, seemingly from within the earth, as if a giant candle is bathing every crumbling building with its glow. I feel at peace.

And apparently if I did die here, I would achieve instant “Moksha” or enlightenment. All of my sins would dissolve and I would emerge in the next life, as clean as my mother’s bathroom. Widows and elderly folk come to this crossing place between devotees and deities to live out their final days. They are literally here, just waiting for death.

Preparing livestock for the festival ;)

Kempo does find me a room, a fantastic room actually. For the commissioned price of 800Rs ($16CAD) I have a large, clean room with a bathroom that has a hot water option, a luxury I have not experienced in India (nor have I needed a hot shower, especially in the South). I’m at PB Ganges View Guesthouse, efficiently run by Arvin, a man with a penchant for “magic” lassis and India’s “So You Want to Be a Millionaire”. He tells me that he initially told the touter no, he had no rooms, because he doesn’t like to support scammers. But something told him to pick up the phone and call Kempo back. Thank Shiva he did!

After so long without sleep, I eat a quick dinner on Arvin’s rooftop restaurant under his interested gaze (I discover over the course of my stay that he is fascinated with watching me eat – I have no clue why). I fall asleep at 7pm to the sound of wailing, singing and a preemptive rooster. When I awake the following morning, my first steps outside the guest house present the shocking experience of my first corpse. An old man has passed away in the night (hence the wailing), and women are gathered in the alley, in between pools of runny cow dung, human urine and dog vomit, washing his body in preparation of his (public) cremation. I tiptoed around him, apologizing (in English) to the weeping women as I did. 

This was my introduction to Varanasi, and three days later, it hasn’t let me down yet. Stay tuned...

A treasure within the maze of tiny alleys of Varanasi