November 23-25, Varanasi, India Travel Journal

Varanasi, a place filled with spirituality, superstition, the Ganges River and the largest site of public cremation.

As I sit on a hillside of steps, I watch after one, then another body is carried to this place. There are no photos here for they find it to be an act that may harm good karma and I respect their wishes.

I have expressed to my family on several occassions that I did not want to be cremated for how can my spirit rise if it is burned? This is not the belief of the Hindu for they believe the spirit rises with and during cremation, to a better place, to the next life.

There are so many bodies and I imagine that many have been transported by car, train or bus to arrive to this place, this holy place on the side of the Ganges.

This site has a 24 hour flame but this is the only item I find to be peaceful for this sight is not a peaceful place, it is not a quiet place. It is filled with the rumbles of everyday life, logs being chopped and piled high, pedestrian traffic, conversation, animals, children playing, vendors selling postcards, people having chai, rowers in the river, the yelling of many to and fro. While I sat, among the edges of the cremation and while a family gave their well wishes to their loved one, I witnessed a large fight breakout.

I learn there are two types of burials that occur here. There is the cremation burial and the river burial. The cremation is the method used for most individuals while the river burial is used for children, pregnant women and holy men for they bodies cannot be cremated.

I sit for hours and am amazed as the row of people are carried into the cremation process. I wonder how hard this process is for the body, the body that is covered with a thin cloth and dandelions. A body that is laid on top of a pile of logs and then a pile of logs is placed on top of the body. I am thankful that the face is not exposed for this is not a soft burial into dirt, but a harsh burial where the body burns and either the family or cremation worker pokes at the fire and the body in order to expedite the process. One notices that the exposed feet are the last item to go and as someone pokes and pushes them them with a large stick deeper in the fire...my heart beats fast in sadness.

Sadness that is only overwhelmed as three men walk slowly down the stairs in front of me. The man in the center is carrying a blanket that I have seen hundreds of times, blue with a checkered pattern. But as he decends, I notice he holds this blanket differently. As he passes just a few steps away, he holds the blanket with a small child's face exposed and I inhale. The child is so small that I imagine that it is a sillborn child, if not, then it is just hours or day old. It's face is pale and the bundle of blanket overwhelms the small package.

The man in front of me looks back in my direction and I hold back a tear. A tear that cannot fall for this will bring bad Karma to the small creature. At the edge of the river, a man retrieves the child and wraps it in a white cloth. He then bundles this small package and ties it to a flat large stone that is larger than the bundle it holds. With little effort, the father holding the child embarks emotionless on a small rowboat. The boat keeper rows only a few yards out into the Ganges River and barely slows to drop the tiny package in the vast river. It took just a second, a blink of an eye..and the boat returned to shore.
As my heart continued beating hard and my mind objected the thought that the cermony was over, without a thought or prayer being uttered. My mind created a silence in the vast noise to give this small bundle a place of rest but was quickly returned to reality for there is no rest, this small creature is on a journey to it's next life.

The three men that had arrived with the small bundle, washed their hands and face in the Ganges and returned past me again, in soft conversation.

It is amazing, this noisy place with the cycle of life of both old and young being delivered for their next journey by men, for no women are present.

I floated with the dead the next morning, with their ashes and their bodies below the planks of a row boat. Even though I am just a few feet from shore, it seems so far for their is no noise and there is Peace.

God Bless

Excerpt: I am reading a book called The Piano Turner written by Daniel Mason and within these pages, I quote the following and think of the small bundle being dropped into the Ganges:

"There is a Shan saying that when people die it is because they have done what they needed to, because they are too good for this world."