Kashi the Luminous

Arrived Varanasi (Benares) three nights ago and I've completely fallen in love with the city. Run a google search for Ganga Ghat and see tons of photos, extremely well documented famous city. Being surrounded by tourists is a huge relief actually as I am normally the only white guy for hundreds if not thousands of miles surrounded by hundreds of school children crying "Hallo Hallo Hallo" having rarely if ever seen a non-Indian. Pretty decent guest house with good community (wow there's a first in India) reminds me of the pseudo-hippy culture of Backpack Budapest. View of the Ganges from balcony restaurant/cafe is incredible. Dawn is unbelievable here with fleets of tourists loading into the daily river-commuter traffic of boats (all for Western tourists).

At the cremation ghat was taken right up to the funeral pyre where the grizzly remains of a recently ignited body filled the air with thick white smoke, the deparded's rancid roast chicken leg complete with brown foot stuck pointedly out of the mass of blackened wood while a man nonchalantly explained to me the protocol of burning, the religious reasons for being burned at the Ganges, and the process the family must go thru: 5 times clockwise circumambulation of fire, Holy Fire of Shiva taken from temple to ignite fire, remains of chest or pelvis collected to be sent into the river, the Holy Men that use the crematorial ashes to decorate their bodies, smoke and eat cooked human flesh.

City is rich and alive with thousands of capilary streets flowing with cows (rich hot cowpies steaming in summer heat) and markets with thousands of shoppers crammed into tiny allys buying selling buying selling.

In my new lavender dothi (wrapped cloth around legs) and kurta (long dress-like cotton shirt) -- the traditional outfit of Mahathma Gandhi, his dynasty and his millions of devotees -- people approach me like a spectre of history, telling me, almost tearing, that I look like Rajiv Gandhi (the one-time botched Prime Minister of India still hailed as a hero and martyr).

This city -- one of its many names -- is called Kashi, "the Luminous," and truly, the shady winding alleys (many times not even a cow's width wide -- which proves to be a problem at times as this city has 15 times as many cows as Sandro Illuminati di Gubbio) open to tides of steps leading down to the water, the city opens up at its edge like a precipice against some brilliant dawn, expanse as wide as an ocean view, flooded with Venician-style boats rowed by toiling millions who bathe ritualistically in the heavy metal laden toxic water of the Ganges, swimming and stewing with fecal matter and funerary ashes (floating limbs) only to exit to be groomed at the many umbrella and cloth-shaded stands, their nails, their beards all trimmed like an exotic and lucious spa, or the baths of Budapest (when they're not occupied with gagging themselves at the fringes, puking onto the hot stone for God only knows what reason).

Every guest house is piled 10-stories high up against the Ganges, nestled in and around the temples, and are many times built right over one; my Guest House doubles as a Vishnu temple. And thus, the pseudo-hippy Guru-seeking Ashram-style hippies bongos guitars and rattles are interrupted by long elephant-like tones of horns, ringing bells and soft sitar music sporadically throughout the day and night. I'm woken at dawn by the beating of clothes pulverized on the ghats to wash sin from laundry as well.

Tora Shanti Ligie, I coax the prowling salesmen/boatmen/shavers/massage therapists as they crowd around me in my flowing white garments "Like a bridegroom" one ancient Indian man, crouched in the shade, told me. And with Bharat's new name (his name means India, how apropot) for me, "Shiva," I dance through the ancient city of my namesake God with the greatest eas and the most unspeakable pleasure.