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Showing posts from September, 2000
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Indiaupdate I Less than a week here and the First World already seems like a distant memory. Particularly here in Varanasi, the city of Shiva, which feels about three times older than God - there isn't a building that isn't crumbling, and it's not so much a city as a honeycomb of narrow, twisting cobblestoned streets stuffed full of stalls, cows, and people. A bit like a Moroccan medina. Except for the cows. I already hardly notice them any more. In a little while I guess they'll be all but invisible to me like they seem to be to everyone else. The Ganges is in flood, so you can't walk along the riverside ghats (fleets of steps) to watch the bathing, the cremations, etc. Navigation through the streets is necessary (well, "navigation" isn't really the right word, since you lose all sense of direction in about thirty seconds. "Random walk" is probably a better phrase.) Apparently if you die in Varanasi, your body is washed in the Ganges, and y