For as long as I can recall, there has been an advertising campaign beckoning tourists to come to ‘Incredible India!’. The imagery is flourished with swirls, patterns, colors and festivals – spectacular beaches, forts and temples beyond imagination. This captures India as it reveals itself in small moments at a time. Small splashes of color between experience and endurance. There isn’t a moment you don’t question what’s happening around you. A culture deeply permeated by symbolism that would take years to understand. From the tilt of a head to the folds of a sari, everything in India has meaning.

India’s past of enormous wealth and vast desert land affording construction of huge temples, forts and palaces. These monuments are larger than life, opulent in their heyday, and now cavernous spaces set aside for tourists. The most spectacularly maintained monument is of course the Taj Mahal. If only the government would maintain others as magnificently as they have this shrine to love that has come to represent a nation.

Meeting friends in Agra with Varanasi as our final destination east, we make many stops along the way. Stopping in Gwalior to visit the colorful Fort and Palace. Continuing through Orccha, a beautiful town on a lake with a monstrous former palace-fort-temple complex. From town to town, these all-in-one monoliths become expected… occasionally adding variety with a mosque. This complex was deserted and has been left as a ghost town. Onward to Khajuraho, an unspecial town now known for it’s pristinely restored Kama-Sutra temples. The temple complex is restored in spectacular fashion to fully display the erotic art. Though not shocking by today’s standards, one can only imagine what the first westerners thought of these carvings? Incredibly detailed and overtly sexual, it must have been shocking! We continue heading east toward India’s holiest and oldest living city. The last leg is a harrowing 10-hour drive to Varanasi by car. Despite its population, so much of India is barren – vast desert as far as the eye can see which often includes the road ahead. The state of Uttar Pradesh is one of India’s poorest, and main roads are typically are dirt. It’s dusty and dry, and an uncomfortable drive. Approaching small towns or larger cities, the roads become dangerous obstacle courses – our driver swerves often to dodge giant potholes, oncoming cows, dogs, goats, bicycles, pedestrians, children and overstuffed lories coming from every direction. Windows up or down, it’s filthy and difficult to breath.

Our small car weaves its way into the city center of Varanasi, the holiest city for Hindus as it is Shiva’s city. It is here they can wash their sins away in the Ganges, and dying here frees Hindus from reincarnation. I suppose this ensures no chance of coming back as a goat. So many fragile people come to Varanasi in what appears to be preparation of their own death. Families are here for funerals and Indian tourists come to visit the sacred city where plastic jugs can be purchased to take some of the precious water home. Further away from the river, you are surrounded by touts trying to sell every possible thing and, for a small fee, offer to educate you not to photograph the cremations or the bodies. As you weave your way through the maze of narrow alleyways toward the Ganges, avoiding cows or the mess they’ve left behind, what you begin to experience is the essence of a very sacred place filled with ritual. At sun up you can take a boat on the river to see the ghats, or steps for bathing in the Mother river. Other steps are being prepared for the days cremations. On all, Ganges worshippers perform their morning ablutions and give thanks to the river. They’re bathing, praying, meditating, stretching (yoga) and washing laundry for all to see. And every night at sundown there is a Hindu ceremony on the Dasaswamedh Ghat to thank the Ganges. While candles anchor small offerings float off in the distance, the effect is magical…yet there are a things in Varanasi that are hard for a visitor to digest. Most notable is the smell of the funeral pyres, it permeates the entire city, your clothes, your soul. The wood is weighed and stacked while bodies are covered in white sheets with gold decorations and marigolds and carried through the tiny alleys toward the two primary burning ghats. It is not morbid, it is contemplative. The mood in Varanasi is quite celebratory, people are going home to Mother. The next aspect of Varanasi that is harder to accept is the filth of the Ganges itself. To see people bathing, swimming, drinking and worshipping the water that has some 3,000 times the volume of fecal matter than is considered safe is shocking. It is common that ashes, bodies and body parts run off the ghats into the river. You can imagine the collective shudder when a passing boat oar might splash a spot of water on bare skin. Or the same chill up your spine as you place your head on the hotel pillow at night, as you know it too was washed in the Ganges. On the contrary, Varanasi is one of the most colorful, introspective and beautiful places in all of India.

Leaving friends due to a glitch in transportation plans, I make it full circle back to Agra to enjoy the sunset over the Taj Mahal before returning by train to Delhi on the last day of our trip. The train pulled out as scheduled at 8:23PM. Plenty of time before my early morning flight home – except when the train came to an unexpected stop just over an hour later. With no announcements of any kind, the train sits in the middle of nowhere for another two hours when finally, an announcement was made that the engine has a problem, and a new engine on the way. By 2:00AM I’ve decided I will miss my flight from Delhi home – and with acceptance comes sleep when suddenly there’s an announcement in Hindi. Everyone around me jumps from their seats and all the tourists look as confused as I feel. There is a train on the parallel track and we’ve been instructed to jump out of our train to the ground (baggage, babies and all) before pulling ourselves up, sometimes with a helpful push, into the replacement train within 5 minutes as the train needed to clear the track immediately due to oncoming trains.

Over an hour and a half later the train arrives at the southern Delhi train station. Not wanting to risk further delay before reaching my final destination, I opt to jump off as the train slowed, but never fully stopped, and run for an auto-rickshaw as it’s now 3:30AM and I still may catch my flight.

   I say to the auto-rickshaw driver “How much to Jungpura?”

   He says, “80 rupees”

   I say, “now I just know you’re joking! 50r – last!”

   I get in and yell “CHALO!!!! (let’s go!)” – we laugh the entire way, 
   racing through a traffic free Delhi in an auto-rickshaw…

With minutes to spare, I make it to my taxi and the airport.  Now that is incredible, India!

04/2005