Word: varanasi
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...good to live in Varanasi," says V.J. Kumari Biswal from the darkened shelter of a photo-processing shop as he watches the third funeral procession of the morning. "Here, you are always reminded of the cycle of living and dying. You can gather wealth, friends, a shop ... " he gestures at the store his father opened in 1908. "But in the end it all comes to this," he says, nodding toward a white shrouded body draped with marigolds...
...others, are thought to be clean. Needing no purification by fire, they are simply weighted down and lowered into the river's embrace. Closer to shore, one of the pure bodies has escaped its mid-river moorings and bobs among a group of children who pay it no heed. Varanasi is not for the fainthearted, but for those willing to risk a little discomfort, it offers a raw and intimate glimpse into the Indian way of life...
...People see the dead bodies and think about the meaning of their own lives. They realize that at the end of a life only the good deeds and the bad deeds remain." As for earthly trappings, they won't make it through the flames. Those you leave behind in Varanasi...
ROCK-SOLID SUTRA Nobody knows why the ruling 10th century Chandela clan picked this desolate spot on a heat-seared plain 300 kilometers southwest of Varanasi as the site for its prodigious spree of temple building?nearly 100 in as many years. But it's a good thing the Moguls, who were lopping off the heads of idolatrous sculptures in their rampage across northern India, never found them. They would have been apoplectic with rage at the temples' stone figures communing in sexual positions that would make a Pattaya prostitute blush...
ARMED TO THE TEETH It could have been a scene from a Bollywood version of The Godfather. I entered the highly recommended vegetarian Sindhi Restaurant near Varanasi's Lalita Cinema to find half a dozen men sitting at the center table, rifles and sawed-off shotguns casually slung across the backs of their chairs. I thought it best not to ask why. None of the other diners, well ensconced in their peeling vinyl booths, appeared perturbed. Nor was I, once my thali, or set meal, arrived. Usually served on a flat metal plate divided into sections, thalis are a traditional...