10.06: INDIA: Varanasi (day 3: Stains)

  Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India
Monday, October 6, 2008

Monday, Oct 6, 2008: Varanasi

When you first arrive-  Varanasi's streets and alleyways, especially closer to the Ganges can feel like a shithole...one giant toilet. It takes time to acclimate to all that's going on in the surrounding environment.







Navigating from my guesthouse and making my way through the maze of homes, shops, vendors, temples,.. I have to have eyes all around me. The streets here are stained with beggars, cows in the middle of the street blocking your path, stray dogs sunbathing where they choose, huge cow patties and smears, the smell of piss from outdoor communal urinals, shopowners accosting you at every corner to "buy buy buy", rickshaw drivers swarming you one after another every 10 feet and fake guides wanting to give you directions. Of course, there's the biggest, most unfortunate stain of all... the poor. Life here, near the Ganges can feel like a
raw reality.
 

 


Today, the father (or brother) of a little boy I photographed came straight in front of my camera and gave the child a hard slap on the cheek, shocking both, myself and the child. [*Only several days later, I realized that this boy & his sister had insisted I come into their home to take pictures of them in front of their altar and then with their friends, so perhaps is the reason for such punishment].



 



An hour later, I passed the open door of a dark house & I witnessed a man initiating sex with a woman, in the way a dog corners a mouse! I stopped 15 feet away. Perhaps curious voyeurism on my part- something didn't feel right...maybe it was the open non-chalance of an old woman selling jewelry just a few feet away. The man came into the doorway, looked around, smiled pleasantly at me, then returned into the house. Another man came out and closed the doors, holding them shut from the outside (see picture below).
I could hear as the struggle inside as the couple banged against the door, while the friend held it back, grinning. Was it willing, rape, or prostitution? I didn't know ... My surroundings didn't lend visible clues
to distinguish a difference.





Regardless, the dirt is everywhere and sometimes you feel like a faith in a God the only illumination in the darkness of these homes, which don't even possess electricity to fuel light..



Viewing ugliness can be a tiring to a backpacking trip. I want a bit of beauty to feel rejuvenated. More than anything, I want to whine. Team M&D changed their flight plans immediately upon their arrival at their hotel (they were upset because it didn't have a pool). They are leaving earlier than planned.

Indian people DO have a kind of warm curiousity about foreigners like the Nepalese, but unlike the Nepalese, its not always immediately seen. Indians seem much more similar to New Yorkers. The harsh lifestyle demands you to develop a rough exterior, a selective eye to what you want to see and a hard tortoise shell to guard against the climate & daily rat races; but when you flip the shell over, you will find
a genuine warmth, willing friendliness and a LOT of curious stares.







People like having their picture taken & will thank you for taking it ...THEN there's the few who will try to charge you for it!... I NEVER endorse begging or monetary rewards. However, I WILL endorse a kid being a kid and occasionally reward a child by giving them "a sweet" or a look at their picture after i've taken it. I've the curse of a powerful sweet tooth, so I always have treats in my bag (for myself). The reactions of the children upon receiving "just one piece" of candy or cookie, gives me both pleasure & sadness as I find that typically, that the "candy wrapper" is sucked dry as if it were gold! A little boy was trying to make himself my "guide" by helping me find my way from my guesthouse out to the main street, so I gave him a chocolate cookie for his help. I was thinking he'd be disappointed because it wasn't rupees but his face lit up as if I had just given him 5 dollars!



I occasionally resort to bribing/rewarding children with sweets- it works on adults too! Usually it melts even the hardest or quietest hearts. NO ONE will decline cookie or sweets! At the airport, when my driver's car had broken down- I was stuck for an hour waiting in the sweltering Indian heat of a parking lot with a group of young male drivers, who could easily decide to carry me off into the bushes if they wanted to. I opened a package of cookies & offered it around. One by one, each hand reached into it. This friendly token put smiles on their faces and lightened my worries -- afterall, who would want to attack someone who's just given them a cookie?

Durga Puja Festival is very prominent here.  There are tents big and small around the city (and in cubbyholes), house an enactment similar to the nativity scene with Durga and her conquering over evil.












Along with Durga altars being put up, lights are also going up around the city. The decorating boy is pushed around on a wheeled ladder so that he can decorate the city with lights.





Sometimes, the night eclipses stains and the few lights there to light the darkness gives things a new glow.... a beauty.

I'm going to the evening Ganga aarti again. Next to the boat tour, this is a must and is the largest performed puja here in Varanasi. Last night "the performance" was gorgeous- young priests dressed in ritual dhoti (?) are lined up on altar mats dressed with the elements of fire, water, incense, flowers and bells. An aged bhajan/chant song about the Ganges comes over the PA system and there is live drum accompaniment to sound beats. In ritual trance (similar to butoh performances) the priests move slowly through each element. Driven by chant, by drum beats, by ritual & by their devotion to Shiva & the Ganges, they move in hypnotic pace- hauntingly, sensually, divinely. I could attend this performance every night & it does remove the ugliness of my day.