The Ghati Spirits

I was aware of how much religion played a role in the lives of the people on the Banks of the holy River Ganga. I was aware of the faith they had, the beliefs they had coming down from years and years through generations. Experiencing it, of course, was phenomenal.  

On the very second day, we walked through the Ghats, right from the famous Assi Ghat to the Manikarnika Ghat. We started in the morning and it ate into our afternoon as well, until we stopped for lunch. It was all very overwhelming. It was my first experience of watching people near the Ganga. There it was finally, the holy river Ganga. I think this first day was extremely important, not because I learnt the most on this day, but because it set the ground for me to begin exploration, to get used to how it was going to be for the next eight days. It was a way of life for most. We were part of it too, the speculating visitors who they didn't worry too much about. It was only at the end of the first day while we were reflecting about the day did I realize that we had been on the move, covering a lot. I had no complaints about the walk. It showed me how engrossed I was in taking in all of it, soaking it in.

Vigor on the banks.

 

The Ganga wasn't the cleanest of Rivers, no. It's ranked as the fifth most unclean river in the world. After the trip though, after the sharing of bonds with people, after the viewing of the life at the banks of The Ganga, the lives of the people on the ghat, I have begun to look at the whole scenario very differently. The reverence the people have for the Ganga is tremendous and quite spectacular. Of course they're aware of the dirt in it, and who says they don't make an effort towards the cleaning of the Ganga!? I realised it is just us foreign minds that look at it as a problem. The people of Banares are doing just fine on their own, and while I stayed there for over seven days, there was a certain kind of force telling me that they always would be able to manage. What I realized by the end of this trip was that I wouldn't change a thing about Varanasi. Sure there were things that could be changed, things that could be improved, but doesn't that hold true in the case of anything?!

Morning Boat Ride Through The Ganga.

The morning sun started to get warmer. The orange-pink of the sun turns into a bright yellow, the kind that blinds for a few seconds after looking at it. The noise starts to increase. I can hear the ripples while our kind boatman rowed the boat he had put together years back along with his family.