The holy city of Varanasi…I arranged for a taxi to pick me up at 3:00 am to take me to the river where there would be a small boat waiting. The taxi dropped me perhaps couple of blocks from where the boat would be. The city is crowded. To get to the boat, I had to walk through areas where people were sleeping everywhere. Humbling! I was on the river in plenty of time to see the day opening. It was one of the most moving experiences of my life. I observed for hours. In fact, for hours on several mornings.
There were sadhus praying
next to donkeys braying
next to people modestly bathing
next to workers hauling bricks
next to children playing
next to women doing laundry
next to fishermen heading out
next to cremation pyres
next to…
The ghats simultaneously serve as temple, family reunion destination, construction site, communal bath, playground, hospital, funeral home… Whatever the activity, it did not seem to be a hindrance or disturbance to others engaged in very different activities. I was deeply aware of how people were able create a kind of bubble around themselves so that they seemed comfortable in such close proximity to strangers doing something very different than they were…sometimes quite loudly. It was a revelation and teacher for me. How different from my world. I had grown up a sparsely populated area with such a different sense of ‘space‘ as in ‘I need my space.’ As I observed, I wondered about that.
All of these images are scans from old 35mm slides. Though perhaps not the best quality, they still tell some of the story of a hot June 1984 morning on the Ganges River in Varanasi, India.
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