Varanasi, part 1...

(it's going to take me a while to catch up on everything that's happened, so I will start slowly...)

It takes time to sink into the rhythm of this here holy holy city. I arrive with a raging chest infection which leaves me with limited energy or patience for the dust clouds (exacerbated by the current roadworks going on), mounds of cowshit (I know it's holy, but I still don't like it) or incessant bleating of horns. Like Kolkata, very little has changed since I was last here 5 years ago and it seems no-one has done any cleaning either! The same Nepali-run 'Shiva Cafe' which I frequented daily in the past is not the clean diner it once was - mountains of cobweb clumps line the ceilings and although the food is okay, it's not what I remember. Not for the first time I wonder if it's just me whose standards have risen... perhaps it was always like this and I just didn't care.

My reunions with my 2 old local friends are great, besides the fact that I forget Munna's name and my Hindi teacher does not recognise me - he is blind in one eye and swears all foreigners look the same anyway. However, both of them say exactly the same thing to me, that I look the same, only "more healthy" and I wonder if that's a nice way to say I've been eating too much paneer? ha ha - more likely that last time I was skinnier than ever before - too skinny Bablu says, but then again, this is a country which equates leanness with poverty... I slip into my old routines pretty quickly = Hindi and singing lessons, chai and conversational Hindi with a myriad of shopkeepers, and lazy walks by the sacred Ganges.

Which leads me to this holy holy body of water. This lifeforce which so many base their lives and daily routines around. I will attempt to describe it for you...

Come sunrise, and it is a hive of activity: washer men slamming dhotis onto rocks and then stretching them out on the dusty ghats to dry (I want to ask whether or not this defeats the purpose, but of course say nothing), young bathers eel like in the water, Brahmin priests crosslegged on the concrete reading from holy books, perhaps the Bhagavad Gita or the Vedas, others getting their heads shaved - customary for those who have lost an immediate family member and have come here to cast their ashes into the holy waters, bodies still asleep beneath piles of blankets on various concrete slabs, early morning cricket games (since India won the cup they have gone even more crazy on it), babas and the homeless lining up for their daily alms. Dogs slip back into their passive roles, having enjoyed the freedom of the night to run around in packs and feign ferocity - they are the mangiest dogs I've ever seen in my life - it hurts the eyes to look at their scabby lack of fur and disease ridden limbs... so much in India hurts if you let it, but there is enough magic to keep us travellers here forever...

Young boys are hungry for business and offer cheaper than cheap boatrides. I go for one (pre-organised from my gueshouse) with two English lasses and love it - the sun rising slow and red in the sky, the man trying to charge 100 rupees for the honour of releasing one 'Dalai Lama' fish into the river for good karma - a fish he will no doubt recatch straight away!, the women selling small containers of flowers and candles to send off in to the river, boats full of Bhutanese monks and tourists from all over India as well as the rest of the world...

Daytime is a different story... with the hot sun in the afternoon sky the mood is lazy. I attempt to sit alone and meditate but it's never long before I'm approached by young children selling postcards or single men wanting to know whether or not I'm married - oh India, how I love you anyway!! A grandfather sits on a lone rock surrounded by six grandchildren, his massive arm around all of them at once but not in the least concerned about the possibility of their falling into the river - it would probably be good luck anyway to take an extra Ganges bath, right?

It will take me a lot longer to describe the sunset Arati, so perhaps I'll leave this for another time... it's nearing my bedtime and this computer keyboard is frustratingly sticky and slow. Oh India.... I love you anyway although you are worlds away from what I have become accustomed to...