“There’s always happening much more than we can bear.” I know this verse by the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer by heart — did he have the Indian holy city in mind? I take a few steps, and before me, multiple lives, even histories, unfold. All kinds of people gather on the banks of Mother Ganges — colorful, leprous, half naked, well-dressed, blind, barefoot, sacred — moving through moments that stretch like chewing gum. My attention, that of a slow traveler, is overwhelmed. The sensations are simply too much. “There’s always happening much more than we can bear,” I repeat to myself.
In my journal I find an entry with my first impressions: “Varanasi welcomes me with honking. So many people! The carousel of this mystical, wild city begins to spin with me in it …”
I arrived by high-speed train from New Delhi. In the middle of the night I wake up and rush to the toilet. Oh, diarrhea – Delhi’s welcome gift! Just after, my alarm rings. In the hotel lobby I wake up the receptionist, who is sleeping blissfully on the floor, to unlock the chain on the door. I expected quiet and empty streets before sunrise. But in a megacity footsteps on the street never cease. Mysteriously wrapped figures move around dark corners, tending to their affairs at an impossibly early hour (4 a.m.).
At the station I navigate my way through a colorful sea of sleeping bodies curled up on the floor. India: an ocean of bodies! The train is modern, its seats packed to the last corner. The monsoon rain follows us through endless plains. By the way, buying a train ticket is an adventure in itself. I was lured into several small travel agencies — despite the hotel owner’s warning, I somehow found myself in one of them and had to escape. At the railway station ticket counters, people elbow their way forward and use all sorts of tactics. Trains in India are always full; reservations are recommended two months in advance. Luckily, there’s a special counter for foreigners, where I quickly fill out a form and secure a ticket for the Vande Bharat Express.
And now I’m here, in Varanasi — one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on the planet and one of the seven sacred cities of Hinduism. Rickshaw drivers compete for my attention in the encompassing chaos. My bicycle remained in a Delhi hotel. I hop onto a cycle rickshaw, pedaled by a bony, bearded man in sandals. After a year of cycling, someone else now sweats through their shirt to move me forward, weaving through the honking and narrow gaps in the dense traffic. A strange, unfair feeling.
I get off in front of a labyrinth of narrow alleyways, where no vehicles can pass. On the threshold of a packed street stall, boys vigorously froth a white liquid, pouring it into clay cups. They decorate the drinks with fruit, spices and colorful drizzles before passing them inside. I treat myself to an exquisite lassi at this famous Blue Lassi Shop, seated between blue-painted walls covered in passport photos left behind by satisfied guests.
With my backpack on my shoulders, I push through the crowded streets. I pass countless small and grand temples where people leave their offerings. Many trees are sacred too, adorned with decorations. Incense sticks release curls of smoke into the air. Above our heads, sweating men carry bamboo stretchers wrapped in orange cloth — the body of the deceased. Accompanied by chanting and the ringing of bells.
I get caught in an endless procession of people in front of Kashi Vishwanath Temple. Women with painted foreheads clutch offerings of flowers, nuts and milk. Amidst it all, a sleepy cow, the sacred animal, shuffles forward. The other day it curiously pokes its head into the restaurant where I am having breakfast.
Finally I glimpse the river and its stepped embankment, the famous 84 ghats leading to the Ganges. Some serve for ritual bathing, others for puja ceremonies and two are exclusively for cremating the dead. Boats sway on the brown water. The opposite bank is sandy and seems uninhabited. Along the stone steps stretching for 4 kilometers, clusters of people perform their ablutions.
Half naked they step into the river and submerge themselves. Children splash and play. Others press their palms together and close their eyes. Or they gargle, gurgle and wring out the holy water.
In Hinduism, bathing in Ganges is a sacred ritual symbolizing purification and spiritual devotion. It is believed to wash away sins and bestow immense religious merit, deeply rooted in tradition and practiced by millions, especially during significant lunar events.
As I walk toward the main ghat, Dashashwamedh Ghat, scenes unfold before me, like waves of the sacred river they are flooding my senses. Under large umbrellas on wooden platforms, holy men perform their rituals, some long-haired and bearded, draped in orange robes; others bespectacled and shaven, dressed in white; some half-naked, adorned with skull necklaces and smeared with white ash on their dark skin; yet others different still.
People lay offerings before them, then join in the puja ceremony, sprinkling flowers and powders over the lingam. The priest marks devotees’ forehead with tilak, yellow-red or ash symbol, and receive their payment.
Many of them are sadhus, wandering monks, living without any possessions, entirely dependent on the offerings of others. Some offer their services through social media, keeping pace with modern times.
At the top of the steps the ornate facades of palaces, renovated or expanded in the 18th century, alternate with carved stone balconies, pointed rooftops and vibrantly painted murals. Some break into shaded courtyards with temples, others are overshadowed by ancient trees offering respite to weary pilgrims resting after their morning rituals and meditation.
Street vendors seek shade too, selling everything from bottled water and chilled snacks to coconuts, floating flower candles and plastic containers for sacred water. Some weave through the crowd carrying trays of crispy fried fish or bottles of black tea, while others offer colorful powders for marking foreheads in ritual blessings.
A boy follows me, offering balloons that sway above him on long sticks. I’m confused, it seems perfectly normal for children to be earning money here. Someone discards remainings of food and a pack of hungry dogs races up the steps.
In the harbor among the wooden boats, the voices of boatmen echo as they call for passengers, offering rides to view the city and the evening aarti prayer from the water perspective.
A barber, armed with a simple razor, shaves an entire family bald right on the steps. He removes the women’s long, dark locks before they step, smiling and bare-headed, into the river.
In the evening the crowds swell even more. We bump into one another on the platform above the river, rising onto our toes to see over the heads in front of us.
Ganga Aarti unfolds, a devotional ritual that uses fire as an offering. Hindus believe the lamps acquire the power of the deity. Devotees will cup their hands over the flame and raise their palms to their forehead in order to get the goddess’s purification and blessing.
Pandits, Hindu priests, gesture toward Maa Ganges, blow into large white conch shells, ignite flames in cobra-shaped brass lamps and dance with them, disappearing into the swirling smoke and behind shimmering feathers. Chanting and music accompany the nightly ceremony.
After the ritual devotees release tiny diyas, flower boats carrying flickering candles, onto the river. Children push through the crowd, selling them. A gap-toothed girl with a bright smile holds out her tray to me. I consider buying all her candles, setting her free from work so she can go play instead …
In the darkness, other creatures emerge from hidden corners and water: rats scurry along the stepped embankment, cockroaches glisten and a frog leaps forward. Weary pilgrims use their humble backpacks as pillows, curling up to sleep right there on the stone riverbank under the streetlights. The steady croaking of frogs and the gentle lapping of waves against boats fill the night air. A strange sense of peace settles in, one I cannot quite trust.
I sleep in a simple room at Vishnu Rest House, right above the river. The ceiling fan spins lazily over my bed, drying the sweat from my skin. On the day the electricity goes out, I’ll sit on the terrace late into the night, letting the faint breeze cool me, since the heat inside will be unbearable. With the relentless July humidity, it always feels like 40 °C.
Now it’s morning. I sit on the blue terrace, listening to the boats clatter below. I’m reading an article in The New York Times about the pollution of the sacred river, The Ganges Brims Wih Dangerous Bacteria. I wonder, how much of a risk would it be to bathe. Could I join the pilgrims in the water?
It turns out the Ganges is teeming with drug-resistant bacteria. Sewage flows into it, millions of people bathe in it for religious rituals and corpses, around 100,000 per year in Varanasi alone, are ritually washed in its waters. No, thank you.
As I watch sick and deformed people on the streets, it weighs on me. Swollen faces, twisted limbs, strange blistered skin … A son leads his blind mother past my table. They all believe in healing power of sacred water. At the ghats vendors sell plastic containers of many kinds for collecting brownish liquid. People fill them and carry the water to all corners of India. Do they drink it? Yes, they do.
Every day of the week, mostly in the evening, I spend time at Manikarnika Ghat, where bodies are cremated. The banality, the everyday nature of death, unsettles me. Among the orange and gold fabrics and the flowers that shroud the corpses, cows step carelessly, dogs sniff around, goats and chickens wander. A swarm of flies flits through the thick, smoky air. A boy in shorts prods the fire with a bamboo stick. He belongs to the Dom caste, a community of the untouchables, who have performed cremation rites for generations. I watch, trying to understand.
“Contemplation and learning.” That’s how Indians describe the purpose of this extraordinary place. They believe that cremation at this sacred site grants liberation from the cycle of rebirth — moksha, freedom from samsara. An Indian visitor whispers to me that lingering here is dangerous, the soul of the deceased may enter you.
Men carry the dead on bamboo stretchers, dipping the bodies into the river before laying them on the pyres. The bank, made up of three dusty terraces, is churned up and covered in remnants of past cremations. Stacks of firewood tower in every direction. The corpse is placed on the pyre with its feet facing the river. The eldest son performs the ritual for a father’s passing, the younger son or husband for a mother or wife. His head is shaved, leaving only a small tuft at the back, just as the god Krishna wore. He bathes in the river and drapes himself in white robes. Women are not allowed on the ghat – crying is forbidden during mourning.
Inside the nearby temple the eternal fire burns. With a bundle of straw, the son transfers the flame to the pyre of his deceased relative. He circles the pyre five times or simply waves the straw in ritual motion. The body is doused with ghee, clarified butter, and sprinkled with flowers. Occasionally, a handful of sandalwood dust is thrown into the flames to accelerate the burning. Up to fifteen fires blaze at once, a vision of hell in the night! Columns of smoke rise into the sky, while gaping skulls and splayed limbs peek out. More bodies arrive on stretchers. More wood is carried on shoulders. The cycle never stops. Day and night, without pause.
The next day, a boat full of wood is moored on the river. An excavator rattles at the construction site nearby. The indifference of everyday life continues, endlessly … A dog howls, submerged in the water. Sweat drips down the half-naked and barefoot bodies in close proximity to the fire. From the white shroud on the pyre, a woman’s uncovered face stares up at the sky. How different their attitude toward death is here. They do not fear it; they accept it, people come to this sacred city with the intention of dying. Others seize the opportunity to search for gold teeth and jewelry in the murky depths of the river.
An Indian man who lives in Australia friendly approaches me. I am surprised when he distances himself, even after years in exile, from people of lower castes — something I simply cannot comprehend. Next to me, on a stepped ruin, sits a long-haired sadhu in an orange robe, breathing rhythmically. Occasionally, he burps loudly.
As I leave the place and take a photograph, a young man named Gautam addresses me. Photography is not allowed, he scolds me. Though Indian visitors stretch out their phones toward the flames without hesitation, I think to myself, while I try to do it unobtrusively, so as not to be disrespectful. He convinces me to follow him to a balcony and to the eternal fire. He doesn’t need money, he says. A classic approach — yet I fall for it! He is kind, explains many things, and answers many of my questions. He talks about karma, charity and the plight of the poor who cannot afford to buy wood for the pyre and die in the hotels of death.
The view from the rooftop, where we stand, overlooking the ghat from a bird’s-eye perspective, is incredible. We visit the eternal fire, the drums in the temple thunder loudly, our faces drip with sweat as he blesses me with the ash of the sacred fire on my forehead.
Then he asks me for a donation.
I only have a bit of change in my pocket, which I offer. He refuses it. Uh, he tells me the price of sacred wood is ranging from 550 to 1500 rupees per kilogram! He shows me a large book where donations are recorded. Shadows dance on the tense and staring faces. I sense this is a scam. I won’t fall for it. “Tomorrow,” I excuse myself. He wants my contact. I play along: I have no internet. I take his contact instead. I’d rather donate money to the poor who are still alive, I think while escaping. Outside, a sadhu dressed in black sits by the fire, performing a ritual. He throws colorful powders into the flames and opens a book. He seems like the king of death …
A city teeming with people inevitably invites all kinds of scams. Fake guides appear, along with fake priests who press a tilak on your forehead without asking and demand payment, fraudulent spiritual teachers performing expensive pujas, rickshaw and boat drivers charging excessive fares. Even the renowned guru Paramahansa Yogananda, in his 1946 book Autobiography of a Yogi, mentions the crowds flocking to the feet of deceitful spiritual teachers in Benares (another name for Varanasi) while he himself searches for an authentic guru with mysterious supernatural powers.
My experience at Manikarnika Ghat truly turns out to be an attempted scam. On the steps of another ghat, a wiry man grabs my hand and forcefully cracks my fingers. “Body massage, good one …“ In this world, one does not ask — only tries. I keep walking. I marvel at the display window of a bookstore in a narrow alley: books on spirituality and bodybuilding lean against each other.
In the afternoon I join one of the many boats. We rattle upstream against the current. Among Indian tourists in lifejackets I gaze at the ancient face of the city, resting against the water.
The opposite bank, mostly sandy and barren, fills me with unease and curiosity. This is the shore where, during lunar phases, the famous Aghoris — ascetic sadhus, smeared with the ashes of burned corpses and wearing human skulls as begging bowls — perform their mysterious rituals.
The word Aghori originates from the Sanskrit Aghor, meaning fearless. In their pursuit of spiritual discipline and growth, they transcend all taboos. They are known for consuming excrement and even human flesh, washed up by the river. They go beyond the duality of life and death, pure and impure — for all is one, divine. They live in clans and gather in great numbers only at Kumbh Mela, the largest Hindu pilgrimage, held every six or twelve years. I place a blue garland in the water, the one I received around my neck at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple.
At Harishchandra Ghat, the second and smaller burning ghat, I find myself among a family performing a cremation. In close proximity, the white shroud covering the old man’s body is doused with milk, sprinkled with wood dust and flowers. “He died of a heart attack,” says one. “He died of diabetes,” claims another. A sadhu with white-painted skin, wearing a faux leopard-skin wrap around his loins and a human skull around his neck, approaches us. He asks for money — for beer! He sways drunkenly. “A fake sadhu,” they explain. In front of a temple, a group of sadhus with their baba sits around a human skull, smoking charas by candlelight.
I encounter the same fake sadhu again on another day as he staggers onto Manikarnika Ghat, with one skull hanging from his neck and another, still blackened, in his hand. He sits before the fire, staring through his necklace. Someone offers him a cigarette. He accepts. From the ashes, he picks up a crutch. He blesses someone with a slap on the back and stumbles away. I follow him — this is street theater in its rawest and purest form.
Later another holy man blesses me by pressing an ash mark onto my forehead and placing a round fruit from Rudraksha tree into my palm: a tear of Lord Shiva.
The monsoon flexes its strength and each day the river rises a few steps higher. Walking along the ghats turns into occasional climbing over steep stone embankments. In one corner, locals tie a boat where people can step in. To cross, they collect a 10-rupee fee — the monsoon floods are business opportunity too.
Slow, scorching days flow like a river. On the streets, I try Indian food like dosa and idli; in the evening, I mingle with the chatty crowd in front of the famous Kashi Chaat Bhandar, sampling different street snacks (chaats) from Pani Puri to Aloo Tikki Chaat — each an explosion of new and unusual flavors. My diarrhea persists; hygiene standards are low or nonexistent. More than once, I find myself sprinting past holy cows in the backstreets towards the hotel to relieve myself.
In my journal, I find a description of a portrait I didn’t capture with my camera, yet it remains vividly imprinted in my mind: a bald-headed toddler with a single tuft of hair above his ear and large brown eyes. The top of his head is painted with a large yellow swastika and a red trident marks his forehead. I had just visited the holiest Hindu temple, Kashi Vishwanath, an experience that left a deep and unique impression on me.
When buying the entrance ticket (expensive 600 INR for foreigners), I must empty my pockets and leave my shoes in a locker. A priest is assigned to me along with an Indian family. I am handed prasad (a blessed offering) and a scarf around my neck. Barefoot we move through the bustling streets towards the temple.
It has four entrances, with endless lines of devotees carrying offerings in their hands, winding past security checkpoints where armed soldiers scan visitors. Our priest-guide leads us through shortcuts — I expected hours of waiting, but surprisingly, within minutes, we reach the central courtyard. In the middle stands a small temple with a golden dome. A snake-like procession of people surges forward, holding offerings high above their heads, toward the black stone lingam of Shiva, the symbol of the ideal husband.
As a non-believer, I am not allowed inside the golden temple, but I can stand near the fence, on a bench right behind police officers overseeing the steady flow of worshippers past the lingam. The devotees push through the crowd, pouring milk over the lingam, an embodiment of the phallus, and onto the heads and shirts of fellow believers too. They hang garlands over it, kiss it briefly before a policeman’s hand pulls them forward.
I am stunned. Before me pulses the essence of India – chaos and jostling, far from my image of spirituality. Drenched in milk, smeared with food, sweaty but satisfied, the worshippers emerge from beneath the golden dome, bow in prayer for a moment, and leave. Under the temple yard’s wide arches, priests perform darshan, offerings to Shiva, amid groups of devotees. On the rooftops, mischievous monkeys scurry, feasting on the abundance. In one of the side temples, a priest feeds a baby monkey.
8 km from Varanasi, after an endless two-hour ride in a shared tuk-tuk and in the company of a funny belching transvestite, I step into another world. Sarnath is one of the four places of pilgrimage for Buddhists; it is here that Buddha first spoke about his teachings.
With its multitude of temples, tributes from Buddhist nations, it reminds me of Lumbini in Nepal, the place of Buddha’s birth. Perhaps it feels a bit too kitschy for my taste, but I find the most joy in the wooden Japanese temple, where a prayer is taking place amidst calm drumming.
In the park a giant Buddha statue towers over the surroundings. Amid the greenery, a huge ancient brick stupa emerges, the ruins of a former monastic complex. The place is pleasant, clean, and serene — a welcome escape from the wild energy of Varanasi. Squirrels dart across the sunlit grassy patches.
One of my final visits is to the ‘hotel of death.’ With unease and trepidation, I step through the gate into a quiet courtyard tucked away from the roar of motor rickshaws. Mukti Bhawan offers free shelter for up to 14 days to those who have come to the city to die. The caretaker leads me to a doorway where a son lies beside his mother on a charpoy bed. She has fallen asleep with a fan resting in her lap. Her wrinkled face drifts through dreams, moving toward the unknowable realm of death. A pigeon flutters in the courtyard. A heavy silence lingers in the air, thick with the weight of the unspoken. Will the last words be words of forgiveness?
It happens that some who come here to die end up living on for years in the sacred city. It is the duty of a son or daughter to accompany their parent on their final journey. Yet, such hotels are now slowly disappearing, giving way to more profitable tourist complexes.
In the temple at Manikarnika Ghat, wild drumming and the ringing of bells turn from chaotic noise into a synchronized rhythm. The flickering fire gestures toward the idols on the walls cut through the darkness with sacred precision. Suddenly, silence. People fall to their knees in the water-flooded temple. Offerings of flowers float on the surface as the priest bows with the flames. A divine radiance erupts, illuminating the infinite splendor of the sacred.
The afternoon train I had planned to take to Khajuraho is fully booked. I have no choice but to stay in the city until morning, waiting for the next departure. At 4:30 a.m., still enveloped in darkness, I walk toward Assi Ghat to witness the morning Ganga Aarti. The stepped riverbank teems with life. As seven priests complete the offering of light to the river, a fiery red orb rises on the horizon across the water. The sun. A new day. I’m overcome with gratitude.
Text and photos by Uroš Marolt