The ghats in Varanasi are riverfront
steps leading to the banks of the River Ganges. The city has 87 ghats.
Most of the ghats are bathing and puja ceremony ghats, while a few are
used exclusively as cremation sites. The highlight of our evening visit
was going to be our visit to the cremation ghats.
Upon reaching the banks of the
Ganges we made our long way down the steps to the riverside, passing through
mobs of locals, hawkers, and tourists.
Parry had booked a rowboat for
all of us, and we boarded that, one by one so as to not upset the balance
of the boat and capsize us! It was hot, but there was a bit of breeze on
the water. We had felt sorry for the poor old cycle rickshaw guy who brought
us here, but this rower was a young man and he was hauling us pretty smoothly.
Some boats with Indian devotees were loaded, I mean, REALLY loaded. Definitely
didn’t look safe. There was a "police boat" that seemed to patrol the waters,
so I guess the number for those slightly bigger boats were allowed. Just
glad we weren't on them.
We sailed (kinda funny to use
the word sail) from the steps toward the ghats with funeral pyres. Parry
gave us a lot of information about the ceremony and traditions that have
been going on for a thousand years. The architecture all along the river
changed according to the ruler at that time. There were names painted on
the buildings identifying this ghat or that ghat. The high flames of the
cremation fires were visible from quite a distance. As we got closer to
the main cremation site, we could see at least 11 pyres burning with several
shrouded bodies waiting on the steps.
There were piles and piles of
wood stockpiled -- brought from the forest across the river, which is 2.6
km wide. At the top of the river bank was the Brahma priest’s house. At
the base of that were three arches with alcoves. In the middle was the
eternal flame from which the families took a lighted piece to light the
pyres. It was disconcerting to see the brightly coloured cloths that had
covered the corpses -- discarded before the cremation -- just tossed onto
the side. They were taken away later by the clean-up crew . There were
cows browsing through the garbage and packs of dogs defending their territory
all along the steps. It was amusing to see three yellow dogs barking aggressively
and chasing a single black one. As he retreated, two of his buddies came
and they chased the yellow ones. This scenerio could be seen everywhere.
We were told that many of these dogs devoured bodies of animals and people
that were washed up along the Ganges.
