It’s now been two months since I arrived in India, yet at every turn I am surprised by what this country has to offer. Every city I visit in India is unlike anything I’ve seen before in my life, but unless you manage to escape into the mountains like I did in Dharamsala, Indian cities are a never-ending bombardment on the senses full of horns, dust, heat, people, and general chaos. I’ve slowly managed to acclimate myself to the environment here and now feel I’m capable of dealing with most things India throws at me. When I first arrived in New Delhi, walking around the city was an utterly exhausting experience, but I thought I had seen the worst of it until I visited Varanasi.
Over the last 10 months I’ve seen over 50 different cities in 19 different countries, but Varanasi (map) is without a doubt the most unique city I’ve ever encountered – even by Indian standards. There is no city in the world quite like Varanasi and in my mind the city has a category all on its own. Varanasi is the holiest of the seven sacred cities in Hinduism and even played an important role even in Buddhism (Buddha gave his first teaching in Sarnath just 13km north of Varanasi). Frequently referred to as the “Athens of India," I was mesmerized to discover that Varanasi is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the entire world - it even predates many of the world’s modern religions!
Much like any other city in India, Varanasi definitely holds true to the phrase, “love it or hate it.” Before I arrived, I heard terrifying stories from other travelers who watched dead bodies float down the river, walked alongside dying people in the streets, and saw people burn along the river. What on earth goes on in Varanasi and how am I going to prepare myself for what I see there? I was rather uncomfortable about visiting the city, but every single person I spoke to said the same thing, “You cannot leave India without seeing Varanasi.” It was, for all intents and purposes, a right of passage for any travelers in the country, but I was unnerved by one simple fact:
Varanasi is where people come to die.
For someone who loves the feeling of being completely, abjectly lost in a strange new city, Varanasi is an endless labyrinth full of hidden little markets, shops, and temples embedded in the narrow alleyways. Frequently I would leave the hostel to go wander the city and return exhausted after spending hours just trying to find my way back. To this day, I have no idea where all I walked my first day in the city, but I couldn’t care less. Varanasi ranks as one of my all time favorite cities, but it does not conform to the “traditional” metrics that I use for judging cities. The selling point for me is Varanasi’s tremendous cultural significance, but the city itself is unbelievably difficult to deal with.
I love Varanasi, but the entire time I was there the city treated me like crap. For starters, the city is overcrowded (even for India) and the streets are full of cars, rickshaws, people, bikes, scooters, motorcycles, cows, monkeys, goats, and dogs (just to name a few) that kick up plumes of dirt and dust from the pothole-ridden, rocky road below. Add to all that the unrelenting heat of the afternoon sun that cooks you like a rotisserie chicken at your local supermarket. I promise, you won’t last more than 20 minutes walking in the city. Varanasi is overwhelming in every sense of the word and confusing even to this traveler who has spent months in the country already. I’ve never seen so much activity and so many people packed into such a small space - and mind you I use to live in Manhattan!
By all comparisons, Manhattan is a tranquil paradise of solitude compared to Varanasi.
I’m not joking even in the least.
One of the things any travelers must do when visiting Varanasi is to walk along the Ganges across the 80+ ghats that are all crammed right next to one another like brownstones on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. At the most basic level, a ghat is simply stepped embankment to a holy body of water, like the Ganges River, where pilgrims perform their ritual ablutions. If you wake up at 5:00 am for an early morning boat ride, you can see hundreds of people along the banks of the Ganges taking their morning bath in the… let’s say murky… water. Stepping into the Ganges here at Varanasi is, without a doubt, the most unhygienic act a person can conceivably do. I find it horribly ironic that these people perform their “ablutions” (the ceremonial act of washing oneself) in this filthy river.
During my week-long visit, I saw everything ranging from basic garbage, to animal (and probably human) waste, flowers, ashes from the nearby cremation ceremonies, meaty chucks of half chard body parts, and in one instance a full blown corpse floating down the river. After what I’ve seen tossed into the Ganges River, I wouldn’t so much as put one toe in it. I understand the holiness of the great Ganges River, but to see people bathing in it is stomach churning. I tried as hard as I could to not judge these people’s culture, habits, rituals, etc. and repeated had to use the phrase “Well, it’s India” to rationalize everything I was seeing.
Now I’m pretty sure I’m not making a great case for Varanasi so far in this post, but the reason why I love this city so much is that it forces you to open your mind. There really, truly is no way around it. In Varanasi you are faced with two choices: either embrace the remarkable cultural differences or attempt fight it, but the latter is a futile effort that will only result in you hating everything that makes Varanasi great. The clearest example of this is my experience at Manikarnika Ghat. Many Hindus believe that death at Varanasi brings salvation and that the holiest place to be cremated is at Manikarnika Ghat. As such, the ghat operates 24 hours a day 7 days a week, rain or shine and is the single most unnerving, eye opening, horrific, and yet somehow calming experience I’ve ever encountered in my life. Standing at the banks of the Ganges overlooking a pyre of wood with a man on top burn to ashes before your eyes is a challenging experience to go through. It forces any human being to question the meaning of their life, the insignificance of life, and the interconnectedness of life all in a single moment.
The cremation is only one of the many experiences I encountered during my stay in Varanasi, but what I love about the city is that Varanasi makes me feel uncomfortable. The vast cultural differences force me to broaden my perspective of the world and gets me to question that “normal” really is. If you visit Varanasi, you will leave viewing the world from a slightly different perspective than when you first arrived. Even for a man who’s traveled in India for months now, Varanasi is an overwhelming experience in every sense of the world. It is by no means a relaxing, tranquil, serene city like my favorite town, Hvar in Croatia, but after Varanasi I realize there are just some cities in this world that I will never be able to categorize or rank. For me Varanasi symbolizes all that I want to see in India and is the epitome of phrase, “love it or hate it.”
For anyone out there who is interested in broadening their horizons and stepping outside of their comfort zone, Varanasi is your city. If you have the opportunity to visit India, do not leave without visiting Varanasi. I can’t stress this enough, your visit will not be a relaxing walk in the park, but it is a completely worthwhile and unforgettable experience.
I promise.