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Sleepy tourists follow singing pilgrims on the road to the Ganga. At this wee hour, a handful of pilgrims and vendors keep alive this road, which was a river of cycle rickshaws yesterday evening. The motley crowd takes a detour at one of the entrances to the Vishwanatha temple, the famed destination in Kashi aka Varanasi aka Banaras. Their bhajans will wake up the deity, Shiva. Then they will visit the nearby Sakshi Vinayak temple, where Ganesha keeps an attendance register for the devotees of his father.

Boundless faith, timeless city

Don Sebastian
2007-03-08 19:46:02

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Harishchandra and Panchaganga Ghats in that order. Another five-day pilgrimage, in a circular route, begins at Manikarnika ghat and ends at Varuna ghat, where the Varuna river joins the Ganga.

Smoke rises from pyres at Manikarnika and Jalasayin ghats. Faith brings the living and the dead to Varanasi. There are people who come to the holy town to die. Their bodies will be burned at its designated ghats and their ashes immersed in the Ganga. Priests and undertakers wait for the dead amid stacks of firewood at these ghats. These men, like death, are forever at work. The Ganga has been bearing a sin with all its dirt and a soul with its remnant ashes for centuries. Miraculously, the sacred river is still blue.

I leave Sampath at Dasaswamedha Ghat, where ten horses were sacrificed in ancient times. This is the busiest and easily accessible ghat in Varanasi. I walk past priests under big umbrellas. Their agents accost me. Holy men, who bless the pilgrims and recite prayers for them, are always in demand. Earlier in the river, two foreign women on another boat had bowed to me with folded hands. Either they took my saffron bandana for a symbol of spiritualism or they recognised hitherto untapped holiness!

Certain ghats seem to have a regional flavour. Pilgrims from non-Hindi speaking states are concentrated in ghats where priests who speak their languages are at service. Differences of language, ritual and sect are levelled in the waters of Ganga. Varanasi is every pilgrim's must-see destination. Groups of villagers from different parts of India come to bathe in the holy waters. A boatful of pilgrims sings paeans to the gods. Fish, gulls, goats and dogs feast on the offerings made to the river.

Varanasi's ghats are open-air gyms too. Shape is as much a concern as spirit. Every morning, dozens of men - young and old, wrestlers and shopkeepers - flex their muscles at the ghats. A 68-year-old man is exercising with younger comrades. ...