the burning ghat
a dispatch from the ganga
vinny bombora
In labyrinthine imprecision the alleyways beside the ghats in Varanasi wind this way and that. You can get lost within the maze for hours and find yourself kilometres away or else you trip upon the same spot you began.
Along the way your senses are deranged by the multitude of people, the motorbikes coming up behind blowing their horns, stray cows, goats wafting through, a water buffalo wanders out from a side street in front, a man asleep upon the ground (at least you check as you pass to see if he’s still breathing), the piles of manure that you tread upon, the sleeping dogs that you tread over and the thick, sweet smell bellowing out from the doop sticks adorning the front of every shop.
It’s a beautiful place to get lost especially during a heatwave, round midday, gushing with sweat; the stench is thicker, the discombobulation more viscious… best to drop a few valiums beforehand to produce that fragrant chill in your mind.
You know you’re in the area of the Vishwanath temple when you start to see the hordes of police sitting around with rifles propped up against their legs. They’re there to curb any communal tensions that might stir up near the golden temple… the temple of Shiva.
Varanasi is the city of Shiva, Lord of Destruction; he holds the sacred river in his flowing locks and he walks with erect phallus. It’s the city of Death; vital and ancient, propped upon the edge of the sublime, filthy Ganga.
Then you stumble down one of the side streets and the dense smoke hits you; heavy, spiced aromas of banyan, bamboo and the prince of the aromatics: sandalwood. You know you’re close… Manikarnika ghat, the place of burning; the most auspicious place to be cremated.
The buildings peter out and the stone walls are replaced by great walls of stacked wood; thousands of pieces to build the pyres.
That’s where Raul steps in; he who I am seeking, I the dupe that is going to make his day. He’s standing out the front of the dank and dingy hospice above the cremation ground.
Evidently he’s from the Varanasi Cremation Charity; a charity that helps the dying. I nod and think why not.
At the entrance sits a gaunt, elderly woman with a thin shawl draped across her head. It’s no doubt she’s seen a lot of life but she’s not quite at the end.
We enter into the hospice, a large empty room with a concrete floor; it’s not as you’d imagine: filled with the sick and dying. The waist high walls allow you to look down over the ghat.
The wood, I’m told, is very expensive. If I donate some money it will be good for my karma. I’m always up for my karma yet have reservations about Raul’s stake in the claim.
I ask him where the actual charity is situated; he turns back in the direction of the city and points to the front then towards the left then right.
I gaze down over the ghat, smoke floods the scene; there’s men walking around in lungis overseeing the cremations. There are four pyres burning. A few more stacks are being built; rectangular, about a metre high then a body is placed upon and more wood stacked on top.
The bodies can be seen amongst the flames, mainly the head and feet at each end.
Raul points out that there are three levels of cremation, the ones closer to the actual Ganga are for the people of lower social status and the cheapest positions. Then it moves up until you get to what he refers to as the VIP section.
There are no women to be seen on the ghat because in the past they would perform sati: the act of throwing themselves upon the pyre to be burnt with their husband. The government has outlawed this practise.
The men working the ghat are the doms, an untouchable caste, a position basically off the scale of the social radar. The burnings go on round the clock with about two hundred a day.
I ask Raul why Varanasi is so sacred. He tells me because Shiva used to smoke hash here. I ask if Shiva partook of opium but he says this isn’t so. I don’t believe him, let’s face it, the blue god was definitely chewing on some opium and gazing upon eternity.
Why is this the choice place to be burnt? He points down to a fire below the hospice. It’s been burning for three thousand five hundred years; smouldering logs with a trishul sticking out.
He leads me out of the hospice asking me to give the old woman a donation for the charity; a moment of duality: is the bread for the charity or is the majority for Raul? I give her a good amount but when I convert it you could only buy two schooners of beer down the pub.
She begins blessing the crown of my head. Raul translates: your father’s name, your mother, your brother… but I don’t have a sister, so I say her name instead knowing it’s to no avail.
He takes me down to see the ancient fire then we’re standing beside the pyres.
As he turns his back like he is unaware of what is taking place he says, “Take a photo… quick take a photo.”
I’m well aware of the no photo protocol but I do it.
The whole body doesn’t burn; for a male it’s the torso, females the pelvis. Those parts are dumped in the river along with the people that don’t get burnt. Pregnant women, those bitten by cobras and lepers; they’re all taken out into the middle of the Ganga, tied to a stone and dropped.
He points out a body floating in the river. I’ve heard stories about these bodies washing up on the shore to be devoured by dogs.
The next morn as my boat is pulling in from my sunrise trip I note a dog ripping into something. As I get out I see a bloated body flowing in and out with the soft, slapping of the waves.
It’s with me a quarter of an hour later when I take a dip just ten metres downstream with the other bathers.
Raul walks me back through the stacks of firewood and asks for more money. I give him a little but he looks offended. I mention that I’d already donated, figuring he’d get his cut. It’s paradoxical at this point: to be a mug or to be a mug.
I walk back up the winding alleyways, it’s beer o’clock which is problematic because there’s a radius around the Ganga where you’re not supposed to consume booze and finding the bottle-o is like a mission from the burning flames of hell.
So I decide to locate the Government Bhang Shop where cannabis is sold across the counter in the form of chocolate balls. A sacred area needs to have a sacred substance available to the seeker who wants to open up those realms.
After an hour of trying I come across the shop. They’re flashing the balls of hash chocolate at me but I’m asking for opium. They’re covering up these larger balls that they say are made with Ganga water and therefore unsafe for me. I’m thinking they’re the opium balls that they won’t sell to me.
The next night I didn’t have the same prob… after being asked by more people than minutes in the day I finally concede to follow this rather rocky guy whose demeanour reeks of the professional opium eater down an unlit side street.
The large ball of tar he’s flashing in my face is definitely opium.
I have to tell him that I don’t want the whole amount although it’s going to cost me less than a jug of beer because there’s no way I can consume that amount before I have to walk through customs.
I take a smaller ball, eat it and dream of her in sweeter climes.
I leave the government shop and spend another hour hitting the main streets of town until I come upon a dilapidated concrete cavern painted pastel blue on the side of the road that’s selling cold beer out of a fridge. I smuggle it back into my room beside the Ganga and down them in the heat like a good alcoholic should.
I eat my chocolate ball and take a stroll about the town. By the time I stumble into an internet café I find that my fingers no longer possess the ability to type.
I’m passing by the burning ghat a few mornings later and Raul appears. He asks me to come to his shop and I decline.
He snarls, “I know what kind of man you are, you promised that you would come but you never do.”
On my last night, I’m not too sure how to get off it. After a few clandestine brews I stumble into a restaurant on the far side of town.
“Do you have special lassis?”
The proprietor shakes his head and walks away.
After a few minutes he walks back up and says, “Well we have the soft, a medium or the maharaja.”
My ears prick up at the mention of the maharaja but the price he’s asking.
We mull over other possibilities, the opium lassi, very tempting, or perhaps the heroin one, completely enticing, yet the price begins to sky rockets.
I’m asking if I can have one with a sprinkling of the white powder but he’s saying that is not possible.
We decide that the maharaja is what I need.
He says, “But you promise not to come back tomorrow and complain it was too much and made you sick.”
“Of course not,” I reply self-satisfied.
As other customers come and go I wait a fair time for this lassi to be produced. A man arrives at the entrance with a container and walks out to the kitchen.
“Sir, it is ready but just wait five minutes.”
The customers thin out and when it finally arrives I swallowed it with relish.
Later in eve as I lay upon my bed I can’t move a muscle. I’ve been watching the fan twist for an eternity. I feel nothing and it’s divine.
The revolutions of the fan are the turning of the wheel of life. Its axis is Varanasi: the centre of the universe… the place to burn.
more by vinny
