Ok, the day has started and I already saw a man’s dick and it wasn’t mine, good morning Varanasi. India can be a contradictory place with its “no smoking in public places” rules, but not having rules against peeing, pooping, spitting and preventing animals to shit everywhere, especially cow’s. Street sweepers in this case clean everything except cow shit, for that they have cow shit pickers, that come later. They pick up turd piles with a shovels and put them in bags. Later they pile them in stacks on fences to dry. Dry flapjacks are then used as burning material for candles or incense.
Varanasi’s riverside is a very atmospheric place, that feels like is stuck between the centuries. Standing here and witnessing a life that hasn’t changed much since ancient India is a verynicy experience, at the same time seeing it’s being spoiled with touts, scammers and beggars. Verynasty. Varanasi is a place of every kind, it can be traffic heavy by day and dog loud by night. It is a place of chaos and order manifesting itself in the city of cars, pharmaceuticals and technology along with a medieval religious practices. For which people bring food products to use them by the Linga-yoni, super simplified for ‘vagina’, in belief of improving fertility. Around the areas of open air crematoriums air linger particularly sweet. Not so long time ago those who poor came here to die in waters of Ganges without being cremated. Today it is almost impossible to see a floating body of a common person in the river anymore. However as one man said “for good karma” Sadhus aren’t being cremated, but being put to Ganges to rot.
When it comes to the sacred places such as this, scammers find the most creative ways to pull out some cash from foreigners by making them feel guilty and introducing the ‘moral concept’ of respecting family’s loss during taking a photo of them from a distance. Then they take that money, split it between them and get shit faced before they fall on the bench for the night.
