From Varanasi to Allahabad

I'll start with my haiku for Varanasi:

Salvation no more
Shiva shamed in Ganges ghats
Sandalwood wasted

To get you to speed: Varanasi is SUPER holy, the city of Shiva (the god who is both destroyer, in this firm, and creator), and place where people come to cleanse themselves in the Ganges (cleanse in the spiritual sense -- no one is getting any cleaner in there, since the river contains 3,000 times too much fecal bacteria to be considered safe to bathe in, if you crunch the numbers in Lonely Planet), and also cleanse the bodies of their dead relatives before setting them on fire in the river. You can read about the rituals and their significance yourself, but what you can expect of the city is that it's holy, hot, contested (Muslim mosques built atop Hindu temples, and vice versa), filthy, and contains a good many burning corpses.

Because a few temples of greatest interest me are totally closed to the public, I followed my brief (not THAT brief) episode of being lost downtown (the auto-rickshaws are not allowed to go all the way to the water) with a long walk along the entire length of the Ganges ghat (think: dock for cleansing people) area (a couple miles).

I don't have a lot to say. It's beautiful, and I was lucky to go when there weren't any crowds at all, even at the most famous cremation ghat, and it was a nice walk (even though I was so sweaty it was like I was in the shower). The problem, and the problem with Agra and Fatehpour Sikri, as well, is that you are under SUCH constant assault from people offering their services (in Varanasi they are offering to take you on a boat ride or to a guest house) and they are SO aggressive that it's quite miserable. I mean, in Agra you have 5 year old girls chasing you SCREAMING, as you are entering the ticket line for the Taj, the price of admission...like you didn't know, or couldn't figure it out, and like screaming un-needed information at someone, repeatedly, while chasing them down the street is a form of employment or deserves compensation. My problem is not being watched...in Afghanistan I was VERY much watched...my problem is having someone else in my face constantly...it makes me an unpleasant person.

I actually got in a bit of a fight with a guy at the Manikarnika Ghat (according to LP: "The most auspicious places for a Hindu to be cremated") because I was watching, from afar (like from quite a ways away) and when I kept refusing to let him take me to the family's ceremony (people DO watch, but it's considered rude to take photos) and I told him in Hindi, with a definite mixture of dismissiveness and aggression, to "go," he said that I had no business talking to him disrespectfully in "his palace." I told him that this wasn't his palace, that it was every one's palace, and that I wanted to THINK (this has being something I had to repeatedly tell people in Agra -- I want to THINK, and I don't want some one's endless chatter or nonsense...some of the places we are at are HOLY SITES, and I want to be CONTEMPLATIVE when I am in them!), and that HE was disrespectful to break my silence. Oh! That reminds me -- I also got a "fuck you, man" from a guy who tried to harass me on the street. Story as old as time...or at least as old as India (which is to day: about six decades): I was walking on the street, ignored him when he stepped in my path and asked me where I was going, where I was staying, did I need a guest house, a boat, good price, hello, hello, hey sir, good discount, the temple is that way, the ocean is that way (it's not even an ocean!), etc. and I told him "no" and to "go" and he continued, unrelenting, so I steadily pressed his chest away from me (which Desi has observed is quite effective -- you are walking, and someone is rushing next to you, and without a word or a look, you just push them calmly back), but he grabbed by arm, and I said to him: "Do NOT touch me," and he said "don't touch ME" and followed up with his f-wish. Oh well!

Long story short: I did the ghat tour of Varanasi and more or less avoided the contested temples (there are only two), although I did observe the Alamgir mosque, which I was drawn to by some weird school (I got a photo) above the Panchganga Ghat (the ghat where five rivers, which ones I don't know, supposedly meet) which seemed to be some kind of an exercise facility for muscles and scantily-clad half-Hindu/half-Buddhist monks...I mean it was really weird. I was standing there, above the river (or five) and there was just like FLOODS of men coming from this white metal cage of a building...I hiked the steps (and they are so steep and it is SO hot, and there is SO much fecal matter and urine in the air that even I thought I might be compromised, in terms of my normally-hardy spirit) towards it and ended up, to my left, at Aurangzeb's mosque.
North India monument rundown: everything is built by Akbar, as well as his son, Jehangir, and HIS son, Shah Jahan, who was killed by HIS son, Aurangzeb. You actually sort of start to feel for the personalities involved: Akbar's religious tollerance, Shah Jahan's love for Mumtaz (for whom he built the Taj)...you start to think about his gentle love of white marble and Aurangzeb's greed...

ANYWAY! I got on the bus to Allahabad, which only took 30 minutes longer than Lonely Planet said it would, and after an initially negative encounter with SWARMS of rickshaw drivers (all cycles, unfortunately), I finally got my bearings (the bus, of course, dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, NOT at the actual bus station, but I knew we were within walking distance of the Hotel Milan Palace...no hot Italian men staying in it, for those of you who are wondering, and the bell boy does not wear Prada) and made it to the hotel. I'm pleasantly surprised by the room.
UGH my blog stamina is decreasing really rapidly.

Ok finish Allahabad -->

I forced myself out of my room, even though I have not been THIS dirty and exhausted in a really REALLY long time (I just ache, and by the time I checked-in to the hotel and went to my bathroom, I physically had dirt SMEARED on my face, like I looked like a chimney sweep!), and went to one of the most enjoyable things I've seen on the trip (thereby making Allahabad worth it), which is the Anand Bhavan -- the home of Motilal Nehru (Congress Party guy who worked with Ghandi as the first Prime Minister of India and who, against Ghandi's wishes, moved for partition and the formation of the separate state of Pakistan)...he's the father of Indira Ghandi (not related to the GOOD Ghandi lol), which is the one you read about in Mistry's "Fine Balance," and who, herself both tyrannical and revolutionary, gave birth to two sons, one of whom scandalized himself by continuing HER forced sterilization campaigns, and who was assassinated, and the other of whom innocently married an Italian woman (Sonia) while he was an Air India pilot in Italy, and who, when his brother was assassinated, reluctantly took charge (he was ALSO assassinated, and it was his wife, Sonia, who was famously declined the Congress Party's push to make her PM, because the BJP and other Hindu nationalists threatened riots and self-immolation if she, a foreigner, became PM...she's fascinating, but I don't know much about her).

ANYWAY, it was such a great place to visit, not only because you get to see the bookshelves and personal belongings of these people that are so much more vivid to me, since coming to India, but also because it's this really relaxed, beautiful, tourist spot for families looking into the history of their nation. It was just so family-oriented (in a non-annoying way) and peaceful, I was really enjoying it.

Things got a BIT stressed, but also, in the end, pleasant, I guess, when an Indian tourist, maybe 17 or 18, approached me and asked me to take a photo with him. He then INSISTED that I give him my email AND phone number! Because I was SO frustrated by scammers, I guess I was heartened by his kind of naive engagement with "the foreigner," so I played along. We ended up going to the on-site photo exhibit together, and then he came with me to the Allahabad library (this gorgeous late 19th century structure). He confessed that he had NEVER spoken to a foreigner before (and had seen only a few in his life EVER) and that this was his first trip outside his village, 60km away, in celebration of the completion of his 12th class exams. I knew where it would go (ie: he'd cling), but I let it take it's course, which meant NOT dodging him when he asked if he could see what a "nice" hotel looks like, and not shaking him off when we asked if we could go to McDonald's. Well it was a day of firsts for him (NO GIGGLES! You know I don't like younger guys, and EWWW I'd so NEVER do that!), as I also learned that it was ALSO his first time to ride in a lift (he was SO enthused by the elevator in the hotel, even though it only goes up three floors!), and his first time seeing, let alone eating-in, a McDonald's. I got him a McVeggie with Cheese and a coke, and we parted with promises to email each other the photos we took. I made a feeble attempt to be generous, warm, pro-education, anti-caste (it's hard to impart all these things on a youth in a few hours!), etc. and I think, or at least I hope, that he left motivated to really work hard for his CAT exam (their general university admission exam which he told me he'll take THREE YEARS after graduation to prepare for), and understanding that while I'm nice, not everyone is, and it's possible that even nice foreigners he tries to talk to will be so warn down by India that they might prefer privacy.

So ends my day in Allahabad!

I owe you: the rest of Chandigarh, Amritsar, our return to Delhi, and my time in Fatehpour Sikri and Agra....

Gosh the to-do list is mounting!

XO

VC