Reflections on the Ganges

After travelling with company for so many months, I’d quite forgotten how simultaneously luxurious and daunting a solitary weekend in a foreign pocket of India can be. Of course, I leave on the usual flight – inhumane a.m. on a Saturday – and as I stumble down the pitch black flight of stairs and bang on the car window to wake the dozing driver, I am excited about 3 things:

1. going to Varanasi
2. going to Varanasi on my own with a good book
3. going to Varanasi on my penultimate weekend in India, which means that two Saturdays from now, I won’t be waking up at 4am. Hurrah!

I’ve been putting off going to Varanasi (or Benares) mostly because it’s a bit of a pain to get to from Hyderabad (5 hours in transit via Delhi), but now that I am finally on my way to India’s holiest city (with a good book), I’m not too fussed about the circuitous route.

This good book I keep referring to is actually not excellent, just reassuring in its familiarity and promising in its foreignness when compared to my own experience and understanding of the world. This good book is eat, pray, love by Elizabeth Gilbert, and fortuitously I have already finished ‘eat’ – staged in Italy, and my departure for Varanasi coincides with the start of ‘pray,’ which is all about solitude and self-reflection and becoming one with God in an ashram in India.

Varanasi is no ashram, but it certainly boasts its fair share of Yogic masters and sadhus (I’m about 70% sure that’s the Hindi word for holy men). Varanasi is all about a continuous communion with God. It’s where Indians who want to be released from the tiring cycle of reincarnation go to die. Those who have lived on the banks of the holy, if filthy, River Ganges since birth consider themselves very fortunate.



I find that I spend the majority of my time in Varanasi walking along the river, taking in the vibrant colour and activity of the ghats and staring at the serene stillness of the water, as well as fending off the self-appointed guides, underage merchants and bullish buffalo. I’ve been assured none of the three bites, but I’m not convinced.

Varanasi is teeming with contradictions. A mix of chaos and serenity, vile stench and transcendent ritual. I find it simultaneously energising and stifling. I am glad to have arrived and equally pleased to be departing within 28 hours.



I spend a long time watching the bodies burning on the riverbank. All Hindus who die in Varanasi (and some who die elsewhere as well) are cremated on the banks of the Ganges, at one of two ‘burning ghats.’ Owned, maintained and run by one very large extended family, the burning ghats are in operation around the clock, typically with 5 human bonfires at various stages of decomposition at any given time.

I’ve never seen a dead body before and this is quite the initiation. The bodies start off wrapped up in cloth and gold foil, but as the flames get to work, the burning limbs, dripping fat, become visible. It’s deeply disturbing, especially when caretakers shove severed limbs back into the heart of the fire with long poles. I find myself thinking, it’s ok, the person’s already dead. It’s spiritual, not barbaric.

A member of the family who owns the ghats tells me “burning is learning” and proceeds to explain that burning purifies and releases the soul. Those who die with a pure soul need not be burned (pure souls inhabit the bodies of people who have died before the age of 10/with child/by snake-bite/afflicted by leprosy/two other cases I don’t recall). In these cases, it’s not ashes that get thrown in the river, but the whole dead body! (Same river in which people bathe, brush their teeth, do their laundry, wash their buffalo. Although the buffalo may defecate in the river, rest assured the people don’t – I see a grown man taking a hearty dump directly beside the river.)

I do a lot of thinking in Varanasi – it’s one of those unavoidable by-products of travelling on one’s own. I think about why I wanted to come to India in the first place, why I’m so ready to leave (a month ahead of schedule) and what I want my life in London to be like when I return.

Of the people who thought spending 6 months in India was a cool idea, the majority still thought I was mad to go through with it. But not once did I think I was doing something crazy or outlandish. I was apprehensive about being effective in my job, but that’s a constant irrespective of location. My apprehension wasn’t remotely related to cultural differences, which to be frank, was a stupid oversight resulting from a mix of naiveté, hubris and literary romanticism. I joke around that all my knowledge of the world comes from novels, but it’s true. I like the literary masterpieces of Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy, of course I’ll like living in India. I lived in Italy for 15 months, of course I can live in India for 6. I love Indian food, Bollywood and the bright colours and sounds of Indian weddings – of course India will feel like a second home.



That said, my genuine desire to live in India, however naively founded, was more a function of heart than mind. Inexplicably drawn to the subcontinent, I really had to stop and ask myself why. I now know it was the subtle work of a decade of classes, films, books, speakers, meals and museums. From the homemade paranthas my friend Sanskruti shared with me from her packed lunch in 7th grade to the Sunday afternoon I spent engrossed in the South East Asian art wing of the Met at the age of 14 to the Bollywood class I almost took in college – every contact, however mild, served to kindle the fascination. If I really put my mind to it, I can come up with countless seemingly insignificant instances that, all piled together, year on year, interest on interest, could lead to nothing but a person wanting to live in India for 6 months.

Andrew came to India because it will, along with China, rule the world one day. I came to India because I unwittingly fell in love with it.

In Kerala, I remembered that when I was looking for au pair jobs in Italy, I would check the ones available in India too. In Varanasi, I remember that during the same period of ‘gap year job hunting’ I sent in an application to be an American language trainer at an Indian BPO. I didn’t even know what a BPO was! Nor the cultural significance of the Indian call centre. I just had a thing for India.

I am in Varanasi, in a boat on the Ganges, at 6am on a Sunday morning because in 10th grade, in my South East Asian class, I watched a documentary of which the opening (or perhaps the closing) shot was a pan of the Ganges in Varanasi at dawn. There were silhouettes of spindly men on small fishing boats and the sky was all pink, from horizon to heavens, a deep orangey, mystical pink. Years later, I don’t remember that I’ve ever heard of Varanasi – but when I read in Lonely Planet about the spectacular lighting at dawn by the Ganges in this holy city, I already know exactly what it looks like. I’ve seen it before -- on a small TV screen in 10th grade, which clearly left a lasting impression on some synapse in my brain. This is the way I love India, in snippets of forgotten memories of disjointed experiences, the half of which I’m sure still lie hidden in the recesses of my mind, waiting to be jogged to life by some as yet unknown trigger.

Working in India has been difficult; the cultural divide poses a veritable grand canyon of difference that I feel I will never successfully bridge. Travelling in India is a joy, but it’s not easy either. Wonder is always tempered by heartbreaking poverty and foul smells and terrible filth. In many ways, I feel like a voyeur, taking a fleeting interest in India and her masses but always maintaining a safe distance, not really connecting with anyone or anything.

This is no way for someone who is in love with a place to behave, but that’s love for you. Inexplicable, unpredictable and not always strong enough to overcome the doubts, apprehensions and prejudices of the mind.

I have mixed feelings about India, just as I have mixed feelings about what goes on in Varanasi. Part of the ability to enjoy and appreciate where I am is the knowledge that I’m able to leave, that it’s not really my reality.

I fully expected to find a place in India. It’s always difficult to adjust to living in a foreign country, but I expected to integrate, to figure out my way around the culture, to leave 6 months later and be in two minds about leaving.

Instead, I feel like I’ve survived India.

But I’ll take survival. Even my Indian friend Bani thinks I’ve done well to live in India for 5 months. To spend a weekend sitting on the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi on one’s own is no small feat, she assures me.



I spend Sunday afternoon poking around Varanasi’s expansive university. At the university temple, students sit studying on balconies and windowsills – does it give them an extra edge, I wonder, studying in a house of God? I’m a bit of a novelty, which is odd, as there are reportedly 2000+ foreigners studying at BHU (Benares Hindu University). One 20-year-old guy tells me, “Speak to you, I am very happy.” I, detached as ever and somewhat embarrassed by the inexplicable pleasure he has derived from saying hello to me, smile and nod and shuffle off – I’ve got a flight to catch, sorry, bye, happy Sunday.

Several cancelled and delayed flights later, I arrive in Hyderabad at the wee hours of Monday morning, re-indoctrinated in the art of travelling, being and thinking alone.