Delhi, Varanasi and Beyond

I'm finally somewhere in India that could be described as a small town, and quiet. A arriving in India from Nepal, I as quickly as possible arranged to depart from Delhi - a rather crazy and polluted place to be after Nepal. From Delhi I headed by train to Varanasi, considered to be the holiest city in Hinduism. Varanasi was an interesting place to be. It's lies along side the Ganges river, the holiest river in India. There was some story about it, but like most Hindu stories, it was confusingly metaphoric and especially hard to understand for a naive foreigner such as myself. Basically though, in a non-spiritual sense, it supplies an awful lot of people with the water they need to survive. Reason enough to worship it, I think. Pity it is a purely spiritual worship, and not a environmental. Rubbish litters the banks, and who knows what harmful chemicals it contains. In this water people come to cleanse themselves both physically and spiritually. Some even drink from it. I imaged getting sick from the water vapor let alone drinking it. You couldn't get me to bath in it if you offered me Nirvana.

Because Varanasi is the most spiritual Hindi city, it is also the most popular city to die in. It is believed that if you die in Varanasi and your ashes are cast into the Ganges you will escape the cycle of rebirth. Because of this there are cremations happening almost constantly on the rivers banks. I've heard that bodies burn well, but to witness it is another thing. You don't actually see much of the people - they're hidden under cloth and wood. But I did see a foot hanging from one of the fires. Cremation are open to public viewing, if you are a man. In the past, widows have been known to throw themselves onto the fires of their dead husbands. Hence, no women. Sadly, even today for a lot of Indian women, if their husband dies, their life is practically over. Many women are uneducated and unskilled, so finding work to support a family is almost impossible. I believe a lot of the female beggars are widows, but don't quote me on it.

Next after Varanasi was a quick stop to see the Taj Mahal in Agra - it is the "must see" site in India after all. It was impressive, I have to admit. But maybe I'm just strange, but I, unlike most people, don't really find the Taj Mahal beautiful. Perhaps you could say superficially it is beautiful, but a representation of true beauty, it is not. It's almost the opposite. It is a monument representing extreme wealth and excessive power. Rulers such as this may no longer exist in India, but the divisions of wealth can't be too much different. People spent much of their live working on the Taj, for little or nothing in return. The talented architect of the structure callously had his arm crippled to prevent him from creating another Taj Mahal for someone else. Now that's how you show appreciation.

Following a relatively uneventful stay in Jaipur, Rajesthan, I arrived in my current location of Pushkar. It is a small (for Indian standards), quiet (for Indian standards), and unpolluted (for Indian standards) town. Like Varanasi, Pushkar is another holy place in Hinduism. But after talking with the internet cafe owner, the difference is Pushkar is holy for the Brahmin, the high cast, and Varanasi is for regular, lower cast people. But again, please don't quote me on it.