We filter and interpret every place and experience through our own kaleidoscopic lens. Sometime a place comes together as a full narrative, other times only as fragments and impulses. Varanasi is too much of everything for me to thread it into a full narrative. For me, the ancient City of Life is these fragments of moments and fascinations.
: My first sight of the burning ghat and the charred body in the fire. It felt honest and cathartic. I didn’t want to leave the ghat except my friend Paul was getting a little uncomfortable. I wanted to stand there and watch the fire turn us all back into stardust.
: The milky white light of Varanasi.
: The coy young man who dropped a silver tray of marigolds in my lap and enlisted me in picking the petals off the flowers for the ganga aarti ceremony. Did he sense that I grew up in a factory where repetitive tasks come naturally?
: Sitting next to a chai wallah on the steps of a ghat, there are kids learning to swim in the Ganga, and water buffaloes wandering across the sand on the opposite shore. All the while, Moghlie (a young India boy who’s been following me around all day) is playing me a Hindi pop song on his cell phone and talking to me about Hindi pop culture. Surreal. How did I end up here?!
: Kuldeep treating me to a cup of fresh lassi from a street vendor. It tastes so much fresher and creamier than what I’ve been having in the restaurants.
: The bright orange curtains flapping against the ocean blue walls of my room. I am sitting very still in the 100 degree heat, watching the Ganga and completely at peace.
: There are games of cricket being played everywhere. Old boys playing with tennis balls and real cricket bats. Young boys playing alongside the older boys with plastic bats and plastic balls. One boy handed me the cricket bat and I took a pathetic swing at the incoming tennis ball.
What was the last city you were in that was so intoxicating that you can only remember it in bits and pieces? Tell me about it.
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I was always advised that it was considered culturally inappropriate to photograph the burning ghats…..!