Varanasi: Purgatory, Puja, Pastry

Filled with wintry abandon, we are sliding up the sliced open heart of India, running - mostly sensibly - amok.After contemplation and caffeine headaches at Gandhi's ashram, we watched the landscape change from verdant cultivating fields to flat, wiry scrubland as we swerved northeast to Varanasi in a 20 hour train journey in third AC - a profane luxury after becoming so accustomed to the exuberant chaos and part-time cockroaches of sleeper class.
It comes as no surprise to a visitor of Varanasi - and there are many at this time of year - to learn that it is the central focus of the Hindu religion and one of the oldest cities in the world. Our magnificently cheap lodge towered high up in the Old City, a labyrinth of narrow alleyways, flanked by rather persistent sellers of garments, jewellery, sweets and chai, which barely accommodates the surge of pilgrims and tourists that pulse though it. I have never been so repeatedly lost and so surprised by the places my inexperienced tread led me. Many times we followed a simple route parallel to the river and found ourselves bewildered outside of a temple, stuck in the pushy throng of men and women from all over India eager to offer puja to the resident god; or scratching out heads after ending up in a cul-de-sac with no one but a masticating cow trying to get a bit of chill-out time from the madness outside; or, uncomfortably, in the rubbish and sewage-strewn court yard of the slum-like local residence, where barely-clad children played kites and tickled puppies among the waste.

Once we had ploughed our way through the maze, retracing our steps from doorways and stairs that led nowhere and throwing off the touts and hawkers, we found ourselves at the ghats. These high steps fringe the Ganges on one side, accompanied by temples, lingams, observatories and a host of of wonderfully ornate buildings dating from a range of periods of history, all of which exist in varying degrees of splendour and decrepitude.We often spent whole days wandering along the ghats, watching the Ganges with its bathers and pilgrims enjoying the (frankly toxic) river water as dobhis lay out saris on the riverbank, patchworked with drying fabrics.


On two nights we paid rowers to take us out on leaky wooden boats. From the moonlit river we half curiously, half reluctantly, saw the fires from burning corpses illuminate the temples along the river in scene of apocalyptic proportions - although it was perversely tempered by the droves of tour groups in engine boats whose bumbags were silhouetted against the flames. It was forbidden, and deemed highly unrespectful, to take photographs, although it did not stop the bumbag wallahs who perched on tiptoes, presumably arching for the best shot for their cadaver collections 2010.