This is Banaras baby!

The land that time forgot..
Welcome to Varanasi aka Banaras aka Kashi aka Shiva city. What makes this city so special? Many things actually…firstly it’s the oldest Hindu pilgrimage center in the world…quite a feat considering the religion is ...about 10,000 years old. Plus Sarnath, the place where Buddha gave his first sermon, is a hop, skip and jump away (in India, that’s about 10 kms). I guess that explains why the place is over run with Japanese, surprisingly hard to find Hello kitty accessories and Louis Vuitton's …but surprisingly easy finding places that serve ramen and Okinimiyaki …my favourite restaurant, Ganga Fuji!…

Spirituality made easy…
I find Hinduism fascinating, not just because of the simple philosophy the religion is based on, but also because unlike the pagan religions, there is no worship of the elements, ancestors or divine beings of any sort. Yes there is a pantheon of God’s, 3000 plus at the last count…these God’s were made to represent the ethos and pathos of broader spirituality and society of the time and the geography. Yes the God’s fought battles and amongst each other, they doled out punishments and rewards, fell in and out of love with humans, in fact procreated with them too, to create ‘super humans’, so on and so forth…like the ancient Greek and Roman Gods. My crack at explaining this is because unlike a Jewish, Christian or Muslim God, the God head’s of Hinduism were a representation of ‘real’ society of the time. I way to make people understand and relate to the norms of civilized society, through religion…I call it a form of spiritual hegemony.

It is said that the Veda’s (the Hindu sacred texts) written on papyrus, are in Germany…The Rig Veda, the most ancient and scared of all the texts written by the sage Valmiki had in it the recipe for the creation of gun powder, some 10,000 years before the Chinese did and also secrets on how the universe will end…amongst other things. I would like to learn Sanskrit just to get my hands on the text…dream on, she says. In fact the oldest Hindu university in the world is in Varanasi….more later on that. Now moving back to the Hindu pantheon…

Hinduism for beginners

My feeble attempt at explaining a 10,000 year old philosophy

Adhi shakti (the force that creates, the origin) creates three Gods
Brahma (the creator all things tangible) ------ > Lakshmi (his consort and the Goddess of wealth)
Shiva (the destroyer of all things) ------> Durga (his consort and the Goddess of death, war)------> Snake and Nandi the bull (good and bad particular)
Vishnu (the sustainer) ------> Parvati (his consort and goddess of living)-------> Lion (Parvati’s particular) ..no idea why Vishnu doesn’t have one, maybe he doesn’t like animals …

Now here comes the interesting part
Amongst all the three primary God’s Brahma is least venerated, with just the one temple in Pushkar dedicated to him. I was quite intrigued because you would imagine that the creator would be the most important of all. I asked my guide Hari about this while we were in our row boat on the Ganges at dawn, watching the faithful take their cleansing dips in the Ganges in the freezing cold. Hari had no idea why and promised to find out from his Guru who he promised to introduce me to that evening so that I could get some of my questions answered…’straight from the ‘cow’s’ mouth’ says Hari. This is Varanasi after all, out goes the horse , in comes the cow ha,ha,ha…

The inquisitive ‘hybrid’
Cut to the afternoon, I find myself in a Banarsi silk shop surrounded with the most exquisite saris and silks Varanasi is renowned for. The colours a blend of the rainbow and gold dust…dull golds mixed with blue, red with green…yellow with brown…shimmering and shining below the white light from the fluorescent bulb above me. Hari’s wife was one the weavers working on the saris laid out before me…apparently the skills are passed on from family…each sari takes about two weeks to weave, depending on the intricacy of the design and the purity of the silk. I pick out a saree in red, interwoven with blue and gold skeins in a floral pattern. I know I’ll never wear it…or perhaps for Omer’s wedding, if I don’t put on weight…I look at the price tag and faint…the end!
In comes the Guru, an old man from Bihar followed by the owner of the shop and his brother. Very curious to see who this ‘hybrid’ was…while I looked Indian, I certainly don’t behave it, I’m told. I ask what exactly that was supposed to mean, the explanation I got was that I walk around with a camera taking pictures of cows…well,ok..can’t argue with that one…
So back to the story, it seems that Brahma has been demoted because he attacked his daughter Sandhya after being shot by the Hindu cupid’s love arrow. How is that Brahma’s fault I asked…for one, he created the Hindu Cupid, I’m told…But how was he supposed to know that the Hindu cupid would turn out to be such a ‘namak haram’ I ask? (namak haram – back stabbing bastard) …The answer I get is that, one needs to be responsible for our own actions, no matter what the circumstances. I guess there is some logic in that…Right, so going back to Sandhya, I have to say that I’m really impressed that an entire nation turned against a God for attacking his daughter. But then why is it that women are not given a higher status in society and daughters are considered a liability? If the Hindu rhetoric is about extending the spirituality inherent in the philosophy, into everyday life , ritual and routine…then why are women not considered equal to men then in society. If the Goddess were specifically created were made to embody ethos and pathos then why this servitude?

After an hour of argumentation, examples from my life and quoting my mother as an example, victory was mine!! My reward, a massive discount on some pashminas! Worth it …Though I do admit some of the explanations put forth by the ‘men folk’ were quite interesting…namely that women need to be protected…which is why they will never be ‘alpha anything’ because we’re physically vulnerable…hmmm, but from who? The men…but I do concur. Then the next explanation was quite interesting too regarding the Goddesses, while the God’s where the sentiment, the Goddesses were the enablers or the facilitators ….so for the sustainer…the tool was Lakshmi …nice one!

Opium for the masses
There are more than a million temples in Varanasi, one for every house hold…so 1 temple for three people..There’s a pretty large Muslim population too, so I’d say one for every couple…There are a fair number of mosques too, the oldest, built about thousand years ago…Look hard enough and you can see a couple of crucifixes in the horizon. India, the largest secular democracy in the world is truly embodied in this small patch of land. This the most sacred of Hindu sites is home to about a million Muslims…Not a hint of fundamentalism or communal violence…even when the mohram procession was passing through the streets close to Varanasi’s most popular temple. Gosh! I’m proud to call myself an Indian ‘hybrid’. May be there’s a co-relation between fundamentalism and education. Varanasi is the seat of learning when it comes to Sanskrit, music, arts and culture, cuisine and paan… maybe it’s the opium and hashish… this is Shiva country folks! What ever the reason I’m glad people have other things to do rather than kill each other…

Don’t fear the reaper
Varanasi is one of the largest and oldest of cremation grounds in India. The pyres burn night and day, I’m told there are about 300 funerals every day…gold shrouds for the old, bright red shrouds for young married women and white for everyone else…I see a boat pull away with a little white bundle supported on the stern. I turn to little man Sunil, my self proclaimed body guard, and ask him what that was, he tells me that little children, pregnant women, sadhu’s (holy men) and animals are not burnt but tied to a stone and immersed into the Ganges…Burn or drown …it amounts to the same thing I guess. The sacred fire that lights the pyre is 3500 years old, the pyres can never be lit with a match or anything artificial. I’m very keen to see it but being a women I was skeptical about being allowed into the inner sanctum, but oh no! I had my little man with me…the leader of the shamshan gang...He leads me into the temple and there it is , just a pile of wood smoldering away…no bells and whistles here. Typical Indian nonchalance …I tend to believe it’s a good thing…families (men only), spectators, foreigners, everywhere watching loved ones burn to a cinder and no one flinches….In fact I see a couple of family members take pictures of a burning grandfather or grandmother to show the women back home who aren’t allowed to come to these grounds. The reason being that the crying wont be let the spirit leave in peace…but cracking the skull after the flesh is burnt does…morbid, maybe ….but like with all Indian religions there is some sound logic to it. The skull doesn’t burn easily unlike the other parts of the body, cracking it helps it to burn easily…After about 2 hours, the ashes are scattered into the Ganges and everyone goes home…ashes to ashes …dust to water….

Mama mia!
‘Can I talk to you, but I don’t want any money’ says Sunil, wow that’s a first I think to myself … Sure enough 8 hours later, not a penny exchanges hands, just phone numbers, a new name ‘mamma’, promises to keep in touch, a wonderful tour around the city to places off the tourist map, a running commentary on every pebble and finally, an invitation to a new years party in a house boat with no electricity but with chicken! .
My little shamshan boy Sunil’s all of 21 but such a little gentleman…still in college but so sure of himself…’I want to pierce my lip’ he says, ‘why on earth?’ I ask while looking at his coloured hair, earring and fake leather jacket…social currency in Varansi I imagine…’to be cool’ he says, I guess some things never change no matter where you are. I remember the same conversation with my mum, but a long time ago…After about 10 minutes, and a meal to Ganga Fuji which my little man insists on paying for and would probably never be able to afford, my little man sees the light and I get a new name ‘mamma’. Being the youngest in a family of 5, little Sunil was the man of the house, having lost his father to cancer, as I was to learn that evening while sharing a very modest meal with his family…but by far the best I’ve had in Varanasi. In addition to some ‘kitchri’ and ‘kheer’ I also received an invitation to his sister’s wedding in March..her fiancé, someone she’s never met and will see for the first time on her wedding day…She seems really excited, so who am I to comment. I ask her if she is in agreement with this, I can’t help myself…she answers saying that she trusts her family’s choice..Sunil chips in saying that it’s the same with his future …while he’s studying Physics, its ultimately the family who’ll decide what career he pursues…most likely owning a boat he says…Fatalism is still so rampantly alive in Indian society…I don’t know anymore if it’s a good or bad thing…who am I to comment…I have never seen happier people than the one’s I’ve met on my travels. Pilgrims from various parts of the country, sleeping in the rough or in ashrams where they have access to the bare minimum…but happy. I could trade places with them any day for the lightness of spirit I see here…With Sunil, his family, the men and women paying respects to the Ganges, the little children playing cricket on the Ghats or flying kites….life is simple if you let it..

Lunar eclipses and high heels
Its 31st night…time to bring in the new year! I couldn’t imagine my luck when I found out that it was the lunar eclipse of the ‘Chandra grahan’, a very holy time in the Hindu calendar when thousands of pilgrims alight on the Ganges to wash away their sins! The universe was singing loud and clear!

But before I head to the Ghats, its time for a cigarette! Sitting on the steps outside the restaurant in my hotel watching the live band belt out various versions of ‘Hotel California’, I meet Larissa, my crazy Ukrainian friend. 20 minutes later, I’m waiting for her in the taxi…until she arrives in…a ball gown! WTF! ‘There’s no way you’re coming like that’ I say, apart from freezing and getting attacked, I can think of a number of other things that could possibly happen..this is Shiva country lady! Luckily she has some ‘normal clothes’ in her back pack but no shoes, just the 4 inch high stilettos…Ok, this should be interesting, I think…

Tripping along the Ghats
The banks of the Ganges in Varanasi are lined by ‘Ghats’ or steps on one side. The holy come to these Ghats to take a dip in the water, while sadhu’s meditate by the side of the river…The first ghat known as the ‘Varan ghat is a good 5 kilometers from’Asi’ ghat…hence the name Varanasi…no idea where Banaras came from. Maybe the mughal rulers had something to do that..Every ghat has its own palace built by rulers of principalities of yester years…walk 5 minutes from Manikrama ghat and you’ll see a Nepalese palace with its regulation temple, another 5 minutes then comes the Karnatak's ghat with a palace built by the Wadayars (the ruling family of Mysore) and so on….the best of Indian architecture in a 5 kilometer radius!
Unfortunately Larissa wants to see them all…by night! Tripping along the ghats in the middle of the night with a tall blonde and very loud woman is not my idea of fun…especially when there aren’t too many people around since the ‘holy time’ starts at 12:15 and ends at 3…’Oh well, lets see how this goes' I think to myself. After walking about a half a kilometer or so and seeing rings of sadhu’s covered in ash…common sense prevails and we head back to the main ghat to wait for the masses to arrive…

Half an hour later and the magic begins! Men and women, young and old, able bodied and ailing…from all over the country re-enforced their faith and devotion by taking a dip in the freezing water dressed in the bare minimum. What a sight! The beauty of it all, they had no problems with me taking photographs and filming them…This is India. privacy? What’s that? I guess in a land of 1.8 billion its normal being a voyeur…then the fairies arrived…thousands of oil lamps floating in the Ganges…what a sight to behold…

You can run but you can’t hide
Three hours later two frozen women head back to the taxi…a little girl walks up to me with her begging bowl…and then I made the cardinal mistake of opening my bag…They came in their hundreds! The swarm descended…every size, shape and colour..begging bowls in hand! Larissa’s laughing so hard she has tears in her eyes…’this is supposed to happen to you, not me!’ I scream while trying to escape the hands …’I’m not the moron’ she says…have to agree with that. Fighting through the swarm, bag held over my head we finally manage to get out with about 50 still clinging on…Larissa uses her tall body to shield me but to no avail. I could think of just one way out…fight them with kindness…I make my way to a tea shop by the side of the road, pull out a 50 rupee note in the safety of the other standing by the tea shop…tap into my colonial psyche and arrange the kids into a queue, hand over the 50 rupee note to the seller and runnnnnnnn!!!!

Karma cola
"American mass-marketing had penetrated so fast to the Indian interior that its experts were invited by our government to popularize contraceptives with the same panache. While population control and pop culture raced hand in hand through the Indian countryside, we of the cities and the universities were getting restless, too. But just when the accelerator seemed within our reach, the unthinkable happened.
The kings of rock and roll abdicated.
To Ravi Shankar and the Maharishi.
As the sitar wiped out the split-reed sax, and mantras began fouling the crystal clarity of rock and roll lyrics, millions of wild-eyed Americans turned their backs on all that amazing equipment and pointed at us screaming,
"You guys! You've got it!"
Well, talk about shabby tricks. We had been such patient wallflowers and suddenly the dance was over. Nobody wanted to shimmy. They all wanted to do the rope trick.
The lines were kept open in spite of the political static.
"Excuse me, operator, what did they say? What have we got?"
"Hello, India, my party is saying you have the Big Zero."
Mao had lost out to Maya. The revolution was dead.
So we tagged along with the Americans one more time. Not because of right thought, right speech, right action. But because of the rhythm section. Never before had the Void been pursued with such optimism and such razzle dazzle. Everyone suspected that whatever America wanted, America got.
Why not Nirvana?"

Can’t agree with you more Ms Mehta ….Now let’s see what this malarkey is about…when in Rome do as the Romans and all that…but I’m a local, I can see through the BS in a flash…famous last words!

Enter Atriya Baba God man, astrologer, numerologist and the face that can sink a thousand ships
Enter dumb ass hybrid with a big identity crisis, lots of money but no common sense and a desperate need to find happiness….no matter where, how or with who…

Two hours later and many thousands of rupees lighter…the wedding march tune playing in my head, with the words changed to ‘here comes the fool’. I leave Atriya baba’s ‘practice. Passing some other unsuspecting people waiting to experience their brush the ‘karma’…

While I don’t know how much of my past, present and future revealed by Atriya Baba is true or not…the thing that resonated with me the most is that there are so many of us that will go to any length to find happiness…no matter where and at what price…Is this the price we pay for ‘living the dream’…whatever that is. The irony of it all is that I looked far and wide for just that…and I find it in my own back yard, the smiling faces, the laughter and the Sunil’s of this world give me hope, faith and most important of all, re-enforce my belief in humanity and ….myself

Eat-done
Pray - done
Love - what's that?