Varanasi: Holy....
(Manali, India 13:42.19.6.2004)
Yes. It looks like he’s going to rub my arm with his sweat and snot.
I am sitting on a straw mat, facing the holy Ganges River. My right arm is stretched forward, resting on the shoulder of a chubby man who yelled at me at just the right time.
“Shave your head?”
I shook my head – which I had shaved just 2 weeks ago – and walked away.
“Massage?”
After a chaotic introduction to Varanasi, the holiest of Hindu cities, a massage sounded like a good idea. Within five minutes of hopping onto the Mahanagari Express from Mumbai to Varanasi, one man tried to con me out of my bunk bed, another asked me “why do you travel without locking your luggage?” and another physically chained himself to his large duffel bag. Not the most auspicious of signs. Not exactly the indefatigable ladies of Cathay Pacific who ask to see my boarding pass. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Lustre, would you like an American newspaper?”
Thirty hours later, the taxi driver couldn’t “find the gear” of his “new” car, and thus choked the geriatric vehicle to stall five times. During these breaks, I witnessed striking images of poverty and illness; personifications of diseases that I assumed to have been eradicated. A man was crawling on the ground, tumors covering his body. A woman held out her hand for some rupees. Her palm was seared a fresh pink and she had only three fingers. The driver then offered a day-long tour in this four-wheeled deathtrap for a “very reasonable price, boss.”
The car didn’t explode and I finally arrived at Hotel Temple at the Ganges, towards the south end of the city. I had big plans of naps, and brushing my teeth and a shower. I arrived at 6:30 in the morning. The electricity was killed within twenty minutes, immobilizing the fan and A/C. The temperature was already in the 90s when I left the room to walk along the river.
A Hindu’s visit to Varanasi is not unlike a Muslim’s pilgrimage to Mecca. A person who dies within the city automatically liberates himself from repeating the life-death cycle. Varanasi is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Ganges River is a thick brown, not as thick as the green sludge of Venice’s canals, but unquestionably dirtier. The city’s sewage drains directly into it. Yet, the river teems with people who are bathing, diving, fishing, doing laundry. The place is filthy. And at the end of town, the river is so polluted that there is no traceable oxygen left in the water. A responsible portrayal of this area should devote at least a couple lines to feces. There is shit everywhere. And the 100 degree heat cooks fresh piles of it, lacing the already thick air with strains of pungency. Because cows are sacred here, they go wherever they please and indiscriminately leave behind steaming gifts. Some of the shit is picked up and placed neatly in polka dot arrangements near the river. Dried, they can be used as fuel, fertilizer and Shiva knows what else.
It is in this backdrop of filth that this man called to me. My refusals of touts has become second nature. No I do not need a rickshaw ride, a tailor, marijuana or a shawl for my mother. But for this man, I stopped. A massage might just fend off a heat/stress induced headache that’s creeping quickly up my neck.
He begins by flicking my vertebrae, all the way up to the base of my head. I imagine this technique being born on these river banks thousands of years ago, fine tuned over generations, harnessing arcane knowledge of the human anatomy the continues to elude Western science. It is during this brief fantasy that he has sneezed and wiped the slimy residue with his hands. Well what else was he going to use? His feet? My hands? The newly opened box of 3-ply aloe-infused Kleenex tissues he picked up at the neighborhood grocery store?
He flashes a big ol’ smile, communicating something like “no problem.” He grips my upper arm with both hands and begins to rub, loosening muscle, stimulating bloodflow and greasing my arm – and eventually my face – with his sweat and snot.
This was my initiation into the brotherhood of the Ganges.
Ahh. And the improbable charm of a hellhole.
Three days later I am secretly hoping I’m too ill to leave the city. I woke up with a headache, fever and with every cell of my throat on fire. And to cure this, I’m balancing on my head. Planted my forearms on the mat, wedged my head between and kicked my feet up. Miraculously, they stayed up. The blood rushes to my head, quickly adding pressure to my eyes, my brain. I imagine, with each cool, blue inhalation, the valiant troop of white cells, T cells and antibodies seeking the purveyors of this fever.
Despite the fever, the shit, the pollution, the noise, the unrelenting force of touts and beggars outside Hotel Temple at the Ganges, there is something about Varanasi that keeps a fat kid’s smile on my face. There is no good reason for anybody to like this place, and yet…
Met up with a Dutch guy I met on the flight to Mumbai from Bangkok. There is immediate consensus on Varanasi. It’s hot as all hell and there’s nothing to do. Waiting to see the first floating corpse on the river – while exhilarating at the moment of positive identification – is hardly a fulfilling way to pass the afternoon. It’s like waiting three-and-a-half hours for a 30-second roller coaster ride. And yet, there is a Swiss woman who’s been here for 3 weeks. On several occasions, I sit on a balcony overlooking the slow progress of the Ganges, and think, “Do I really need to see the Taj Mahal so soon? It’s stood in Agra for hundreds of years, and has been immortalized on cookie cans and calendars. Surely, I can afford to stay here a few more days.”
What is it?
Is it me giving into Madonna’s propaganda, enlisting in a 4-hours a day yoga class with a maniacal teacher? Doing sun and moon salutations until I’m out of breath. Having to rest in alligator and frog poses, leaving moth-shaped sweat marks on the mat. Defying my own sense of physical limits by bending over backwards, forming a bridge of cosmic energy with my abdomen and spine. Holding myself in a pushup position as the teacher yells, “Be like a tree limb! Straight! Straight!” Was it the moment I balanced on my head and erased a personal legacy of clumsiness?
Is it the nightly blackouts? The first time it happened, I was walking along the river and had to tip-toe all the way back to the hotel, carefully avoiding poo and the slumbering holy man. The second time it happened, I was prepared and woke up an old man with a boat. Paid him a couple bucks to row me back. Except he wasn’t fully awake. His right arm is much stronger than his left, so we kept veering towards the shore. A consecutive burst of left handed strokes realigned the boat. But then he actually fell asleep. His arms need no cognizant, governing force, so they just kept rowing. And we crashed into a boat. And then lost one oar. And I said, you can drop me off here, this is fine. Couldn’t quite make it to the shore, so I had to wade through the river. I held my breath, as if it would mitigate the bacterial invasion. Still I imagined fingernails, feces and frogs clinging to my legs. I race back to the bathroom of the hotel, this time unconcerned with the karmic repercussions of a holy misstep.
The yoga? The blackouts? Is it the dead rats on the street? The insects that dive bomb into my face as I eat? The endless glasses of black tea drunk while exchanging itineraries and gastric symptoms with the fellow traveler? The burning bodies? The smell of it all that never, ever goes away? The throbbing diversity of Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus – among others whose faiths I’m too ignorant to identify – who live singly in Varanasi? Mosques next to temple. Women covered head to ankle in black cloth, passing women adorned in henna and gold? Is it their children who bear few vestiges of religion but instead follow a procession of Western influence? Faded jeans and knock off Adidas shirts, singing songs from the latest Bollywood flick. These children scream up and down the alleys, avoiding cows in chasing games. Avoiding poo in hopscotch, but taking a few seconds to yell HELLO to the lost tourist.
No, not these.
I know the secret of Varanasi. If you ask a rickshaw driver to take you to the main ghat – or steps that lead into the river -- just walk towards the river until you pass the temple on the left hand side. They are usually frying potatoes there. The next alley is where you enter the labyrinth. You’ll see a ladder, propped up against a small café. They’ve been trying to install an awning for days. Go straight, until you see a tiny store selling Fuji film. Take a left. Walk 20 meters until you see a sleeping dog on a wooden step. It won’t seem like anything, but open the door – usually it already is – and ask if you can come in. Don’t step on the dog. You will see a small child with a round face, wearing a sweater vest. He claims he’s 15. He’s the one you pay.
2 rupees for 3 rounds of Street Fighter II. 13 rupees for each 90 lines in Tetris. 2 rupees again for one life in Mario Bros.
There is only space for two benches, an arm’s length away from a counter. Two TVs that need an occasional slap, and cloned Nintendo machines sit on this counter. If you’re a sweaty tourist, they’ll even turn on a rusty fan that’s missing its cover. The controllers are broken. The directional keypad rotates freely, disorienting me and my Street Fighter II character. I can’t get Guile to do his razor kicks or sonic booms. I challenge a kid, insisting with all of my American bravado to show him how this game’s really played. I won the first round, he won the second and the deciding third ended with me shrieking. My 13 year old opponent with a head bandage had tolerated enough of my childhood nostalgia. I screamed at him, called him a cheater and moved on to play Tetris.
(Manali, India 13:42.19.6.2004)
Yes. It looks like he’s going to rub my arm with his sweat and snot.
I am sitting on a straw mat, facing the holy Ganges River. My right arm is stretched forward, resting on the shoulder of a chubby man who yelled at me at just the right time.
“Shave your head?”
I shook my head – which I had shaved just 2 weeks ago – and walked away.
“Massage?”
After a chaotic introduction to Varanasi, the holiest of Hindu cities, a massage sounded like a good idea. Within five minutes of hopping onto the Mahanagari Express from Mumbai to Varanasi, one man tried to con me out of my bunk bed, another asked me “why do you travel without locking your luggage?” and another physically chained himself to his large duffel bag. Not the most auspicious of signs. Not exactly the indefatigable ladies of Cathay Pacific who ask to see my boarding pass. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Lustre, would you like an American newspaper?”
Thirty hours later, the taxi driver couldn’t “find the gear” of his “new” car, and thus choked the geriatric vehicle to stall five times. During these breaks, I witnessed striking images of poverty and illness; personifications of diseases that I assumed to have been eradicated. A man was crawling on the ground, tumors covering his body. A woman held out her hand for some rupees. Her palm was seared a fresh pink and she had only three fingers. The driver then offered a day-long tour in this four-wheeled deathtrap for a “very reasonable price, boss.”
The car didn’t explode and I finally arrived at Hotel Temple at the Ganges, towards the south end of the city. I had big plans of naps, and brushing my teeth and a shower. I arrived at 6:30 in the morning. The electricity was killed within twenty minutes, immobilizing the fan and A/C. The temperature was already in the 90s when I left the room to walk along the river.
A Hindu’s visit to Varanasi is not unlike a Muslim’s pilgrimage to Mecca. A person who dies within the city automatically liberates himself from repeating the life-death cycle. Varanasi is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Ganges River is a thick brown, not as thick as the green sludge of Venice’s canals, but unquestionably dirtier. The city’s sewage drains directly into it. Yet, the river teems with people who are bathing, diving, fishing, doing laundry. The place is filthy. And at the end of town, the river is so polluted that there is no traceable oxygen left in the water. A responsible portrayal of this area should devote at least a couple lines to feces. There is shit everywhere. And the 100 degree heat cooks fresh piles of it, lacing the already thick air with strains of pungency. Because cows are sacred here, they go wherever they please and indiscriminately leave behind steaming gifts. Some of the shit is picked up and placed neatly in polka dot arrangements near the river. Dried, they can be used as fuel, fertilizer and Shiva knows what else.
It is in this backdrop of filth that this man called to me. My refusals of touts has become second nature. No I do not need a rickshaw ride, a tailor, marijuana or a shawl for my mother. But for this man, I stopped. A massage might just fend off a heat/stress induced headache that’s creeping quickly up my neck.
He begins by flicking my vertebrae, all the way up to the base of my head. I imagine this technique being born on these river banks thousands of years ago, fine tuned over generations, harnessing arcane knowledge of the human anatomy the continues to elude Western science. It is during this brief fantasy that he has sneezed and wiped the slimy residue with his hands. Well what else was he going to use? His feet? My hands? The newly opened box of 3-ply aloe-infused Kleenex tissues he picked up at the neighborhood grocery store?
He flashes a big ol’ smile, communicating something like “no problem.” He grips my upper arm with both hands and begins to rub, loosening muscle, stimulating bloodflow and greasing my arm – and eventually my face – with his sweat and snot.
This was my initiation into the brotherhood of the Ganges.
Ahh. And the improbable charm of a hellhole.
Three days later I am secretly hoping I’m too ill to leave the city. I woke up with a headache, fever and with every cell of my throat on fire. And to cure this, I’m balancing on my head. Planted my forearms on the mat, wedged my head between and kicked my feet up. Miraculously, they stayed up. The blood rushes to my head, quickly adding pressure to my eyes, my brain. I imagine, with each cool, blue inhalation, the valiant troop of white cells, T cells and antibodies seeking the purveyors of this fever.
Despite the fever, the shit, the pollution, the noise, the unrelenting force of touts and beggars outside Hotel Temple at the Ganges, there is something about Varanasi that keeps a fat kid’s smile on my face. There is no good reason for anybody to like this place, and yet…
Met up with a Dutch guy I met on the flight to Mumbai from Bangkok. There is immediate consensus on Varanasi. It’s hot as all hell and there’s nothing to do. Waiting to see the first floating corpse on the river – while exhilarating at the moment of positive identification – is hardly a fulfilling way to pass the afternoon. It’s like waiting three-and-a-half hours for a 30-second roller coaster ride. And yet, there is a Swiss woman who’s been here for 3 weeks. On several occasions, I sit on a balcony overlooking the slow progress of the Ganges, and think, “Do I really need to see the Taj Mahal so soon? It’s stood in Agra for hundreds of years, and has been immortalized on cookie cans and calendars. Surely, I can afford to stay here a few more days.”
What is it?
Is it me giving into Madonna’s propaganda, enlisting in a 4-hours a day yoga class with a maniacal teacher? Doing sun and moon salutations until I’m out of breath. Having to rest in alligator and frog poses, leaving moth-shaped sweat marks on the mat. Defying my own sense of physical limits by bending over backwards, forming a bridge of cosmic energy with my abdomen and spine. Holding myself in a pushup position as the teacher yells, “Be like a tree limb! Straight! Straight!” Was it the moment I balanced on my head and erased a personal legacy of clumsiness?
Is it the nightly blackouts? The first time it happened, I was walking along the river and had to tip-toe all the way back to the hotel, carefully avoiding poo and the slumbering holy man. The second time it happened, I was prepared and woke up an old man with a boat. Paid him a couple bucks to row me back. Except he wasn’t fully awake. His right arm is much stronger than his left, so we kept veering towards the shore. A consecutive burst of left handed strokes realigned the boat. But then he actually fell asleep. His arms need no cognizant, governing force, so they just kept rowing. And we crashed into a boat. And then lost one oar. And I said, you can drop me off here, this is fine. Couldn’t quite make it to the shore, so I had to wade through the river. I held my breath, as if it would mitigate the bacterial invasion. Still I imagined fingernails, feces and frogs clinging to my legs. I race back to the bathroom of the hotel, this time unconcerned with the karmic repercussions of a holy misstep.
The yoga? The blackouts? Is it the dead rats on the street? The insects that dive bomb into my face as I eat? The endless glasses of black tea drunk while exchanging itineraries and gastric symptoms with the fellow traveler? The burning bodies? The smell of it all that never, ever goes away? The throbbing diversity of Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus – among others whose faiths I’m too ignorant to identify – who live singly in Varanasi? Mosques next to temple. Women covered head to ankle in black cloth, passing women adorned in henna and gold? Is it their children who bear few vestiges of religion but instead follow a procession of Western influence? Faded jeans and knock off Adidas shirts, singing songs from the latest Bollywood flick. These children scream up and down the alleys, avoiding cows in chasing games. Avoiding poo in hopscotch, but taking a few seconds to yell HELLO to the lost tourist.
No, not these.
I know the secret of Varanasi. If you ask a rickshaw driver to take you to the main ghat – or steps that lead into the river -- just walk towards the river until you pass the temple on the left hand side. They are usually frying potatoes there. The next alley is where you enter the labyrinth. You’ll see a ladder, propped up against a small café. They’ve been trying to install an awning for days. Go straight, until you see a tiny store selling Fuji film. Take a left. Walk 20 meters until you see a sleeping dog on a wooden step. It won’t seem like anything, but open the door – usually it already is – and ask if you can come in. Don’t step on the dog. You will see a small child with a round face, wearing a sweater vest. He claims he’s 15. He’s the one you pay.
2 rupees for 3 rounds of Street Fighter II. 13 rupees for each 90 lines in Tetris. 2 rupees again for one life in Mario Bros.
There is only space for two benches, an arm’s length away from a counter. Two TVs that need an occasional slap, and cloned Nintendo machines sit on this counter. If you’re a sweaty tourist, they’ll even turn on a rusty fan that’s missing its cover. The controllers are broken. The directional keypad rotates freely, disorienting me and my Street Fighter II character. I can’t get Guile to do his razor kicks or sonic booms. I challenge a kid, insisting with all of my American bravado to show him how this game’s really played. I won the first round, he won the second and the deciding third ended with me shrieking. My 13 year old opponent with a head bandage had tolerated enough of my childhood nostalgia. I screamed at him, called him a cheater and moved on to play Tetris.
