I belong to Kerala, a state in South India which is also into rituals so the Varanasi trip should not have been a bizarre experience but it was. The pandas (priests) who haunt the burial steps on the banks of the Ganges are vultures in human forms. They will do anything to extract money from those who have come to do the last rites of their dead relations.

They chanted shlokas (holy verses) in Sanskrit which were totally inappropriate and when my mother exposed them to those standing around they just laughed. One priest said that it ought not to matter as it is all to make us feel better as nothing really happens when these mantras are recited. I liked his honesty and gave him a hundred bucks, but he whined so much that I snatched the note back from his hands. He followed me all the way to our hotel where I gave him a fifty rupee note and a lecture on how he should be happy with whatever he got.

All in all a very enjoyable experience even if we had gone to do something for my father. Even my mother lightened up after that.
I guess it is no different from reading from the Bible or the Zend Avesta or the Koran; just a lot of words to console those left behind.

Adam and Tina>>

Great and very interesting article. Actually, this time when going to India, I was thinking of visiting Varanasi, and you post made me even more. Pictures are indeed very colourful and lively.

BTW, great writing style as well

Tejvan

Also, as usual, you writing is great and descriptive and an in-depth accounting of your trip. For the next comment, keep in mind that I am not a courageous explorer… the only knowledge I have ever had of India was a comment on the Seinfield TV show where they were supposed to go to India for some friend’s wedding and when they went to visit the parents of the bride in New York, US. they parents told them do not go to India as it is a dreadful place… the only place where they still have the plague. This was meant to be a funny comment as it was the parents who were from India, and as it was, I didn’t really pay much attention to it as a true statement of India. Now your story of your trip makes it all seem so true and as they said, “dreadful”. I don’t think I will be going there any time soon.. then again.. I don’t really want to drive to my local metropolis, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as I hate crowded areas and traffic. You see, I am what is called in the U.S. a Baby Boomer Generation (born in the 1950’s) from the suburbs, which are neighborhoods of middle class Americans with neatly mowed grass lawns and nice houses, paved streets and really a mix of rural life but near larger cities, without having to live in the city itself. This is really a 1950’s invented thing in the U.S. and pretty silly if you think about it. We have created this kind of utopia away from as many problems of city life as possible and yet we have to get in our gas guzzling cars to drive about a hour away through congested traffic to get to our jobs, and in the process, help destroy the planet with our pollution NUTS.. I KNOW!!! We have been born and lived into this culture for the last 50 some years across our country and it is comfort, good or bad, much the same as any other nation. It is what we know.

This is why explorers such as yourselves amaze me! You strike out on your own into new countries and make your way!