Morgalogue

Travellers in India are pulled towards Varanasi like teenage inter-railers to Amsterdam. For a Hindu, it is as important a journey as a Muslim travelling to Mecca. Every year millions of pilgrims come to bathe in the Ganges, the holiest river in India that is worshipped as a god. Some come here to die, whereupon they will be cremated on its banks, assuring them a ticket to nirvana, a loophole in the cycle of reincarnation. It is literally, a once in a lifetime experience.

Western travellers play their part in preserving the town’s almost mythological aura. As if describing some rite of passage they’ll say “Oh you HAVE to go to Varanasi !”. Finding out more is like a virgin asking a big brother about sex or a rookie soldier about Vietnam, no real descriptions are forthcoming. “Indescribable” they say, with oscar winning far away looks, “You just HAVE to go”.

Like teenage Amsterdam, it’s billed as an alternative reality - a mesmeric circus of strange rituals and behaviour, a relentless orgy of devotion, dirt and in the darkness, danger. Bells ringing, babies bathing, bodies burning. A city alive with life and death.

    

The heart of the action, as you’d imagine, is at the waters edge. The riverbank is buttressed by towering, austere walls of crumbling palaces, temples and decadent, balconied boarding houses. The winding passageways of the old town emerge from between the gaps and decend down long staircases, that fan out into public, ceremonial ghats and pavillions along the bank. Ghats are essentially wide stone steps that decend into a river or water tank and are a common feature across India. They are lively, community places where families bathe, women gossip whilst pulverising clothes and kids splash about in the water. Here though, the bathing is more reverential - fresh flowers and candles float around sadhus and priests repeating mantras, meditating and smoking hash. At the same time however, there’s an Indian festival atmosphere, with the exitable bustle of ordinary people in their best clothes, making alot of noise and enjoying themselves.

The main promenade is lined with kitsch fairy lights among traditional parasols and swarms with palm readers, mystics, sadhus, pilgrims, tourists and stalls selling religious paraphernalia. Floating alongside are old rowing boats, taking honeymoon couples and snap-happy groups on pleasure cruises.

   

Looking along the shoreline there’s an almost complete abscence of modern buildings. As the sky turns pink and the candles begin to twinkle on the water, the scene reminds me of old paintings of the Grand Canal in Venice, but with an air of something as ancient and mysterious as the Nile. I’m sure a historian could come up with a better analogy but suffice to say it feels like something from another world and another time.

At night the ghats feel edgier as the town becomes ‘possessed’. Hinduism is really good at creating this atmosphere. The interior of all temples are dimly lit by the glow of ghee lamps and fires. Carvings of gods with multiple arms, provocative breasts or animal heads emerge from the stone walls, stained oily black or red from thousands of years of offerings of coconut oil or powder. Westrern film makers have long used this aesthetic to denote anything ‘ancient’ or ‘ritualistic’ and compared to our neat little choirboys and church candles, it’s easy to see why. Across the city I can see fires burning, hear bells ringing and the beating of drums. It’s the prefect time to visit the burning ghats.

     

The burning ghats are just a minutes walk from the party-like revelry of the big evening puja (offering to the Ganges). After all the pomp and ceremony elsewhere in Hinduism I’m surprised how basic they are. 2 tiers of packed earth, each with room for 4 pyres, step up from the river and are bisected by a simple stairway leading up to a small temple complex. There is no light other than the flames from the funeral pyres. On the edge of the darkness, a wall of chopped wood stretches down to the muddy bank, where two boats are waiting to be unloaded. 3 bodies are ablaze when we arrive. It’s a powerful, primal atmosphere - like vikings preparing to sail to Valhalla.

A knowledgeable con-man showed us around the ‘forbidden’ areas. Women aren’t allowed to attend the cremation - they cry too much and this is bad for the karma of the soul leaving the body. The emotionless men carry the body down to the river and bathe it briefly before placing it on the pyre. A flame is then taken from the eternal fire (3000 years and counting …) and the kindling lit. The resultant ash is later tipped into the Ganges.

   

Babies and children are not cremated as their souls are pure and are instead taken out and sunk to the bottom of the river. Many appear to bob back up and scare the tourists however. Lepers are also not burned as leprosy apparently represents bad karma from a past life. So it’s ‘do not pass go’ for them, though they are relieved of the burden of leprosy in the following incarnation. And strangely, people bitten by cobras are not considered to be dead but under the influence of spirits. These bodies have a piece of paper with their name and address strapped to them and are floated down the river where jungle people will recover the body, perform sacred rites and return the victim home alive ! I did hear this from a con-man however. 

As this was being explained to me, my American friend Sadie, had grown quiet. I followed her gaze to the pyre behind me which had been lit while I was being lectured. I’d missed the sight of the first flames transform the body into a human kebab, but it was still a powerful experience. The body, once exposed to be nothing more than flesh and bone and eventually, an empty charcoal statuette, gives emphasis to the idea of the soul. The men sat casually on rocks or logs, like friends around a campfire, looking out at the water.

As a way to go, I really like it. By institutionalising such a simple, natural form of disposal, Hinduism really makes it strongest existential point - It’s not really about YOU. There is no YOU. There’s no monument to mark your existance or speech to sum up your life. Your body has been returned to the earth and your soul to the continuum. It’s complete impersonality serves to reinforce the point that you are part of a larger order, not an isolated existance. I dig that, even without faith in god.

   

I remember my Mum saying she thought funerals were becoming harder as we move away from the standard Christian format into New Age territory. I guess you’ve got to question whether clinging to Bob’s favourite pop songs and composing poems about what a great guy the miserable old bastard was, is spiritually or psychologically that healthy a thing for a culture that is actually pretty hands-off when it comes to death.

“Oh well, cheerio.” will hopefully be my last words, though more likely it will be “Aaaaaaaarghh”.

The next day Silu the con-man took me to visit a grand but decaying old building overlooking the burning ghats. It has the look of a bombed palace, it’s ornately carved balconies blackened by years of funeral smoke. It was donated by a rich industrialist to house people with no families who come and wait to die. Their cremation is then assured by the temple staff. I’m not quite sure how it works, but apparently when they are on their last legs they can obtain their own death certificate from an office in town to make the burning legal. That has to be the most efficient bit of paperwork in India !

   

It takes some 3 hours to burn a body properly. This takes around 60kg of good quality wood, which comes at a price. Many of the bodies found floating in the Ganges are from poorer families who just couldn’t afford to cremate them. The people who live out their last days here spend their time praying, meditating and saving for wood. There was only one old woman in the vast empty room when I visited. 3 people, including and Australian who’d been there for 9 years, died in the last few days. I’d hoped to talk to her and get a sense of how someone goes about waiting to die of natural causes, but she was cranky and I was tired. I gave her some wood money and left.

The Ganges I must point out, is not a clean river. Earlier this year it was added to a list of the top 10 rivers in the world in danger of being lost to irreversible pollution. Most travel guides revel in the image of ash and bodies being dumped metres upstream from bathers swimming, washing and even brushing their teeth in the same water. In reality though all of these activites combined make up only 5% of the pollution. The other 95% comes from the sewage and wastewater of Varanasi’s 1 million residents. It’s a classic Indian paradox; worshipping mother nature while at the same time choking her to death.

   

Sadie, the American girl who I’d been hanging out with, is a developing world water treatment engineer. I’d just been read in the paper about a symbolic protest the day before organised by a local group to mark World Water Day. We decided to pay them a visit to find out about Indian Environmentalism and try to meet their infamously charasmatic leader.

We were just about to give up. I tried one final time: “Professor Veer Bhadra Mishra, he’s here ?” in my best Hinglish. We were immediately lead into a large, simple chamber overlooking the river.

It was not what we’d expected. We’d assumed we’d find him behind a desk or maybe in the riverside laboratory they have set up. Instead Prof. Mishra, a warm, dignified man of at least 70, is sprawled a cushioned platfrom, barefoot and dressed in white robes. On chairs surrounding a small coffee table, a respectful audience sit in silence, patiently waiting to be heard. Our guide introduces us and motions for us to sit down before bowing reverently, touching the professors feet and dismissing himself. The old man nodded and continued his conversation with a man in a suit (a rare sight outside Delhi) who is holding up a piece of paper. From what I can gather the BJP have pledged money to a project. Prof Mishra, continually smiling, says he’ll only believe it when he sees the bank statement, despite the mans insistance. Several times he’s forced to stop talking as two young children tumble into the room and are given the full attention of a loving grandparent. After 15 minutes of this, he has yet to acknowledge us.

   

It’s like watching Ghandi or the Dalai Lama. He is the archetypal village elder or wise man, commanding unconditional respect with a gentle, familial informality. Only in Asia …

Eventually when it’s our shot, he turns to face us with an expectant smile and twinkling eyes, like a man who spends all day opening presents. He begins by giving us a full technical breakdown of the gravity flow treatment system they have designed and want to implement. I nod and pretend to understand. Then, without much prompting he tells us the story of his life. It’s a great story. He told me the best thing I could do for the Ganges was spread the word about it’s plight, so if you can bear to read any more of this mammoth post, please do.

At 14 his father died, passing on to him the responsibility of Mahunt (high priest) of the Sankat Mochan Temple. A pretty big deal. (This explained the feet touching …). Despite resistance, he went on to pursue his dual passion for science and studied engineering and until retirement was a professor of hydraulics and fluid mechanics at Varanasi university. Varanasi is a major centre for 3 things - god, higher education and classical music. He is also a classical musician.

   

In 1982, long before even the West had a notable green conscience, he set up the Sankat Mochan Foundation to raise awareness about growing pollution in the river. It drew opposition from both government and clergy that continues (if not only in private) to this day. The government are keen to avoid expense and responsibility and for the Hindus, accepting that their ’mother’ is diseased is like admitting the Vatican is haunted or Mecca is radioactive.

So began a battle against bureaucracy and bare faced corruption that 25 years later, is still unresolved. It’s such a high profile case, that has attracted international attention numerous times, it seems completely inconcievable that almost nothing has been done. And still to this day, this 70 year old man and his small staff are the only agency working on the problem. It really is a story of defeat being snatched repeatedly from the jaws of victory.

In the 80’s Rajiv Ghandi’s reforms decentralised many government powers enabling Varanasi to take control of its own sewage system for the first time. Their design, approved by experts worldwide, was given the green light only for council decision-making powers to be mysteriously revoked in the case of one city, Varanasi.

    

In the early 90’s after an article on the Foundation appeared in the New Yorker, an impassioned Ted Turner secured full funding for the project through the USAID development agency. In New Delhi several brand new Ganges NGO’s miraculously appeared and claimed the money.

Years later, Time Magazine listed Prof Mishra as one of their Global Environmental Heroes. Bill Clinton, on his first visit to India, keen to push his environmental agenda, asked to share the podium with (the still unknown in India) Prof Mishra.  New Delhi once again took notice but still, after the fanfare had died down, not a penny made it to Varanasi.

I ask him about the latest turn of events; Prime Minister Mohan Singh has responded to the top 10 endangered river posting by admitting that “… despite worshipping our rivers, we treat them with shocking disrespect and the fact is, they are badly polluted”. He beams, almost amused “once again the government pretends to be interested in the face of international pressure … let me tell you a story”

   

Two months ago was the Kumbh Mela, possibly the largest festival on earth, where around 70 million people come to bathe in the Ganges at Allahbad. So concerned were some of the religious groups about the pollution that the entire sadhu population (the stars of the show) threatened suicide over the issue. The government responded by issuing a statement saying the water had been tested and was found to be Class B, fit for purpose and no cleaning was required.

I’m now beginning to understand his reaction to the man with the piece of paper.

Ghandi never claimed to be a politician or a religious leader though was clearly both. Prof Mishra must be a similarly difficult adversary for the government to be able to dismiss. Despite being a scientist, in possession of raw data on pollution levels and their chemical compostion and even an engineering solution to the problem, he is also a high priest and views this primarily as a religious issue. “We are like the fish” he says “we cannot live without this water. It is our mother. How can you classify it as A or B or C ? Fit for what purpose ? Who are they to say ?”

This is what really fascinates me. I’ve always wanted to meet a scientist who has faith in God. For Prof Mishra though, the issue is far from esoteric. I’m dying to know if he can still embrace the water as a soul purifying goddess, knowing what he knows about its composition: “The rational mind and ‘here’ (puts his hand over his heart), the place where faith, love, music and decisions come from, are parallel lines. I have been blessed with both. But it’s what happens in the space in between them that is important”.

   

It’s a beautiful answer, but a bit of a tangent. I pushed him him again: “Yes, in my heart is a great dilemma and sadness. But the Ganga is my mother and as long as I can walk, I will bathe and drink the water every day. And after that, I will have it brought to me”.

I felt like I’d just hosted a TV interview, peppered with the names of celebs and world events. The man is a pro. As if to conclude this very ‘article’ he answered Sadie’s question about what kept him fighting on happily after all these upsets, with a quote from Pete Seger. Pete and the kids had apparently stopped by on a recent tour, jammed with the Prof, talked politics and even did a small benefit gig. Summing up the long struggle Pete said “I believe in miracles … Show me the report that predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall or the article that said Nelson Mandela would be released let alone go on to become president”. In a word, Faith.