Yesterday I took a walk down the bank of the Ganges with Nelle, Jeff, and Amanda Ji. It was a walk that won’t leave me for a while.
As we began our stroll we immediately came across a Bollywood style dance scene being filmed on the steps leading to a temple that sits on the edge of the river. Indian music was blasting from a speaker as ten dancers, half of whom looked confused and overwhelmed, moved to the screaming narration of the director. Taking all we could from the uniquely Indian moment we had stumbled upon, we continued our walk. Perhaps it was naive of me to accept the bollywood dance as the most outlandish scene to be seen on the side of the Ganges, because just one hundred feet down river came our next adventure.
Each year, during the Monsoon season, masses of silt are washed up onto the Ghats situated next to the Ganges. This mud can be as much as five or six feet deep, and is nearly impossible to walk across. An unfortunate cow found this out the hard way. One of the countless thousand pound beasts that roam the streets of Varanasi had walked into a deep part of the silt, only to sink to a point where only its head and back were above ground. There were five Indian men pathetically attempting to pull it out with a couple of ropes. We were eager to help, but at a loss for how to do so without getting covered in a thick layer of Ganges mud (a hotbed for hepatitis B and dead body remains). Eventually, the five men working on freeing the animal, tied two ropes around the cow. One rope around its torso and another around its head. They then beckoned us down to help pull. Nelle, Jeff, Amanda, and I found the least muddy place to stand by the rope, and began to play tug of war against the mud. The cow groaned and rolled its eyes to the back of its head, which made it hard to feel very good about doing what we thought was best for its well-being. After toiling with the rope for five or ten minutes, we successfully pulled the cow out of its dirty captivity. It immediately ran away. Just as everyone felt the relief of having saved this holy Hindu creature, another began to walk to the same place where the first one had gotten caught. This cow was firmly wacked with a large stick. Crisis averted. Taking a moment to regroup and wash our hands, we set off for more excitement.
India did not disappoint. Just a few minutes away from the cow, lived a colony of monkeys. They were climbing, jumping and running all over the buildings overlooking the Ganges. They climbed up and down and jumped from one building to the next as effortlessly as a human crosses the street. They are tricky animals. We watched them take things from open windows of houses. When the owner of one of these houses would come out to shoe them away, they would hide, just out of sight, but close enough to resume their mischievous work when the home owner retreated. Even monkeys lose their novelty after a while, and so we continued down the holy river.
Passing water buffalo and religious men, kite fliers and boat drivers, we reached the final destination: a burning ghat. We sat quietly on a bench, humbled by the sight of a human body being engulfed by flames. There was no attempt to hide what was occurring. Gradually the body’s expressionless face melted away into the ash below and its limbs and torso turned into an unrecognizable, charred mass. Goats, dogs, water buffalo, and cows meandered through the burning ghat, actively looking for scraps from the fires. Occasionally a worker would hit these animals with a wooden branch, but only if they got in the way. By in large the animals were left to live in harmony with the death around them. After over an hour, we were asked to leave, to make room for mourning families. And thus ended our trek down the bank of the Ganges.
-Eli
