Varanasi - My Take-out from "Temple Town"

I'm not sure why I wanted to return to Varanasi, and after watching how little I enjoyed this visit, my partner (@Terresa_Joy) who hadn't been before - was certainly confused. I think that like Tequilla, Varanasi seems to have a great ability to re-engineer your memory of itself, leaving you with a fond certainty it is worth a repeat performance. But beyond that, there is something unbelievably compelling about a place that celebrates death as much as life; is home to cow, pig, goat, monkey and mouse as much as it is home to human; and that in so many ways seems timelessly independent to the rest of the world.

There are a couple of inescapable characteristics of the place that underline that compelling aspect right from the get-go. A city of more than a million people, and some three-and-a-half thousand years in age at its oldest part - the old city (Godaulia) - is stacked against riverside ghats (steps) alongside one side of the Holy Ganges, while on the other side of the river...nothing. Nothing at all. Mudflats. A vast flood plain usually shrouded in a polluted smog that casts a quite incredible red mist over the sun when it rises from behind it. 

The river itself, a perennial giver of a Holy Hindu Life-force, is at once a heavily polluted waterway and a holy relic of an ancient yarn involving Shiva, his dead wife and a heavenly funeral. As such, people come from all over this vast nation to undergo a lengthy and ancient ritual in order to see their loved one cremated, right there on the ghats and the ashes thrown into the river. (Some, though, are not cremated, and are instead tied to a stone and thrown in - such as pregnant women, children and animals - because their innocence negates the need to atone in fire. Problem is, they can break free from their dead weight and float down the river!) The so-called "burning ghats" - which are publicly accessible - burn the deceased 24 hours a day, (2-3 hours per corpse) surrounded by huge piles of wood, grieving relatives, and bemused cows and dogs feeding on the rubbish that - as everywhere here - lies all around.

Not everything is so grim though. As we journeyed into the town from the airport, our progress was blocked by a huge wedding party, causing an enormous traffic jam that took about 15 minutes to clear. Lead by the groom on a ornately decorated elephant, the procession included two other guests on the back of a donkey, huge mobile neon lighting and a bass band. 

December is wedding season here, and all across "temple-town" huge wedding parties block the streets and bring the city to a sta

nd still. The 15km drive from the airport took over an hour. It finished a ten-minute walk short of our destination as the Old City hotel we were staying in can only be reached by foot or two-wheels because the Dickensian streets are usually not even as wide as your outstretched arms. This is important because the two wheels include motorbikes, and the feet can include those of cows. Our progress was impeded for some time while two huge cows blocked our way as they slowly attempted to turn around in an alley way narrower than their own length. Footwork is precarious as the nicest streets are layered with a slippery veneer of quite ripe cow and dog excrement.

So it's an interesting place! What ruins it, apart from the almost certain inevitability of sickness (which certainly took the edge off my stay) are the hawkers and wallahs (many of them charming, cute, cheeky and cunning children) whose constant sales activity is ubiquitous and relentless and usually dishonest. At one level it is the place in the world where any budding salesperson should visit to learn the art of overcome objections. 
"Boat?"
"no thanks"
"good price"
"no thanks"
"maybe tomorrow?"

And so on. There is no such answer as "no", they simply do not hear it. They fundamentally believe in the power of their persuasive skills. A "no" now can easily become a "yes" in the future, it is only a moment in time in a process that will see you ultimately relent. Boats are merely one commodity in a city seemingly entirely pointed at relieving tourists of all their available cash. Silk is the speciality product of Varanasi and everyone who tells you "I am not a guide" is instead on commission from a silk shop and their apparently generous efforts to show you around eventually culminate in an emotionally-laden request for you to visit said shop and buy overpriced things.

Other scams include the time-honored massage scam which I only remembered - 15 years later - just as I entered its grip, literally. A chap will march up to you enthusiastically and offer his hand to shake, with a jolly "namaste, sir!". What harm can that do, you think. The hand shake quickly becomes a tight massage grip and before you know where you are you are lying face down on a filthy wooden platform on the ghat receiving a fairly ordinary going-over. On this occasion I was able to remember the trick just in time and ripped my hand away. But it is quite counter-intuitive to resist all these offers of friendship. Genius. 

One I did keep falling for is the third-eye blessing, a holy-looking priest approaches you in full Hindu get-up and plants a big red dot on your third eye while wishing you and your family all manner of good will and fortune. Hard to reject that kind of bonhomerie. Priest, schmeist - there is of course a bill. 

I could go on, but you get the picture. Wherever you are in Varanasi, there is always someone in your ear (and at night time the commodity range mutates to include hashish, cannabis and opium). And what makes it so overwhelming is that so much of the pitch is emotional. So many negotiations invoked at some point the seller's need to feed his family, and the phrase "oh sir, you break my heart" is quite clearly a mainstay in the "wallah's guide to fleecing tourists" phrase book. As with death and marriage, Varanasi is a crucible of commerce at its most intense. Everything has a price, everyone is a potential customer and no moment is a rest from it.

Finally, one more component is sheer movement. Traffic - be that on foot or on wheels - is bedlam. Right of way is given to the boldest, who may travel up the middle of the street - or alleyway - as fast he or she dare. When that boldness subsides in the face of someone far more bold - who could be a four-wheel-drive, a bus or a large cow - then they must blend into the less bold traffic relegated to the left, who in turn must yield to let you in. No one "gives way" in the western sense of the phrase, and there is no lane-type order. People simply dodge and weave, usually at speed and with only millimeters to spare. They know the rules and as chaotic as it appears, no one seems to hit anyone. However, to the uninitiated, it seems pure anarchy...and very, very dangerous.

Even now as I "speed" away on the train from what seemed such a dreadful place only hours before, I am beginning to realise that Varanasi is a far better memory than it is an experience. As  @Terresa_Joy  said summing it up beautifully: "you are amazed you found your way out of that labyrinth alive with money still left in your pocket, for at the time neither of those things seem remotely possible!"