The Great Mother

Warning, dear reader ... this post may at times be graphic and troubling to your sensibilities. It was difficult for me even to write.

The Ganges River, or Great Mother, as it is known to Hindus, provides millions of Indians with an important link to their spirituality. Varanasi, situated along the Ganges, is one of the holiest cities in India. Pilgrims come to wash away their sins ... and it's an auspicious place to die. Expiring here offers liberation from the never-ending cycle of birth and death. With that backdrop, Varanasi is almost overwhelming where the most intimate rituals of life and death take place in public along the ghats.

The city itself is a bustling, albeit dirty, city center ... of course with the usual herds of cows and water buffalo strolling along and clogging up traffic. But most interesting is the long string of ghats lining the western bank of the Ganges. Truly India at its most colorful, simultaneously beautiful and horrifying.


There is so much about life and living. There are people bathing,

swimming,

selling stuff (of course),

offering blessings,

selling flowers to offer to the river,

begging,

playing children,

cricket games,

flying kites,

shaving,

worshipping,

doing laundry,

repairing boats.


There are animals of every description ...

water buffalo,

dogs,

ducks,

cows,

birds,

monkeys,

and goats (who're dressed up in shirts - what's up with that).

Every evening at sunset the main ghats come alive with ritual worshipping, chanting, music, and offerings to the Great Mother. It's almost overwhelming to watch as you walk along the 7 km stretch of river.

And then there are the rituals of death. My first visit was around 4:30 in the morning ... it's still dark for another couple of hours, but bells are already ringing, chants being sung. All looks like the India I have come to know and love ... until I turn the corner and see the burning ghats. It is disrespectful to take pictures, but later in the day I was told where I could take a picture from the distance. So, you'll have to visualize in your mind.

It was a scene straight from an end-of-the-world movie. Dark and smokey ... figures huddled in blankets around huge fires ... searing heat from the flames ... stacks of wood stories tall and an Indian weighing and selling to the mourners (even in death, it seems in India it's about what you can afford) ... smoke billowing up, swirling around in the breeze, burning your eyes and nose ... chanting, praying ... family members taking body parts from the fire to throw into the river ... an open water main roaring down the steps into the river ... mounds of mud and garbage everywhere ... loud cracks as the dom's break the skull or other bones during the cremation ... and yet next to it all, a tiny shop owner watching what looks like a Bollywood flick on his small, but high-volume, B&W TV. The importance of the Hindu death rituals is palpable. It is surreal ... I am horrified, yet strangely mesmerized.

Later I wander by during the day and watch the accompanying rituals and prayers. 24 hours a day there are maybe 15-20 bodies being burned at a time. They can no longer set the bodies afire in the river, and those considered clean (the Brahmn class, children, and holy men) are weighted down and sunk.

All of this life and death happening near the river. Sewage regularly flowing into the river. I'm sure you can only imagine that the river itself is just nasty ... so heavily polluted that the water has turned septic, no dissolved oxygen exists, bacteria millions of times the safe level. There have been efforts to clean it up, but so much remains to be done. You see the skin of frequent bathers showing serious poisoning, for not only do they bathe, but swim and drink the stuff. Their skin is discolored, lost pigment, open and ulcerated sores, misshapen growths. Yet with all that, you still see fish and seagulls in the water.

But perhaps the most troubling are the dogs who live near the river. So many nursing moms with their pups. All with their skin horridly ulcerated, virtually no hair left, eyes almost blind, scrawny and malnourished. I fed some biscuits to the one here ... she was sweet, gentle, and ravenous ... I'm not sure she or her pups will live much longer. I can only provide some comfort. And with a bit of a full belly, she laid down and slept while I watched all that is Varanasi. Throughout India there are scores of scrawny street dogs (it breaks my heart) ... but nothing could ever have prepared me for the rampant disease and animal suffering brought on by such serious water pollution.

On my last day, in the hopes that I could make a contribution, I wander to the Tulsi Ghat where the Sankat Mochan Foundation was established to clean up the Ganges. Unfortunately they were closed, but I will follow up when I return to the States.

Varanasi ... a life experience I will carry with me forever ... forever altering my views of life, the environment, and death.