(7) Benares
The flight from Khajurhao to Benares was uneventful. I was prepared for the security check, knew to keep my film with my hand baggage to keep it from being x-rayed into oblivion, I was no longer uncomfortable with the general grubbiness of the plane itself, and bemused by the tiny triangular sandwiches and viscous lump offered as an in-flight snack. I arrived at Benares around 4:30 in the afternoon to the usual Indian urban miasma, proceeded to my hotel, had marginal Chinese food for dinner and collapsed in front of the TV. I spent a lot of time with Indian cable TV. I was into my third week in India and for two of those weeks I was barely functional with my accursed flu, so there was much down time in front of the tube, an insistent counterpoint to the marvels of what I was seeing on the roads and towns and villages of India. Indian TV is as eclectic as Indian urban society. there are movies and broadcasts in Hindi, Farsi and Urdu, MTV Asia and India touting their versions of American and European clichés, RAI network from Italy, CNN and CNBC, and usually the TBS movie channel. I still felt wretched and drained. I arranged to meet a driver at 6 am for a sunrise boat ride on the Ganges. I fell asleep at 7:30.
The hotel, the Hindustani International, was near a Mosque and I was awakened by the 5 AM call to prayer. Six AM came way too soon. I nonetheless dragged myself out of bed and met the cab to take me to the Ghats and the sunrise boat ride. The cabbie took me as far as vehicular traffic was allowed and introduced me to a guide who was of course a shill for a local merchant who would invite me "just to look" at his merchandise after the morning boat trip. We descended the steps of the main Ghat and I was relieved to see that I wasn't being shunted onto one of the crowded boats full of people in baggy shorts, laden with fanny packs and video cameras and wearing stupid hats. I'm sure my hat was as stupid as theirs, but I was in no mood to be reminded of that fact, and I refused to flaunt my chubby thighs in a country where so many people needed more to eat than they were actually getting. The guide took me to a small boat, made a deal with the boatman, and we embarked. The river was very eerie at that hour, it was dark, misty, and there were hundreds of lit candles floating on the water, offered there by visitors in order to bring good fortune. As I was teetering into the boat I was approached by an angelic little girl who sold me four candles- they were actually a shallow paper cup, like a cupcake wrapper, with a candle and a marigold in the middle. As the boat left the shore I lit them, silently said some names of departed folks that were always with me and sent them on their way to flicker in the dawn.
The boatman had a white beard and a wiry frame. He seemed too old to be doing such work. I enjoyed the rhythm of the oars, the whoosh of the water and the gliding pauses. There were only tourists on the river, we were passed by bigger boats that were motorized, with lots of LCD screens of video cameras glowing in the murk. All the sounds were indistinct and muffled. There were bathers along the shore either ladling the water over themselves or immersing. The water looked clear and inviting even though there were terrifying statistics about the microscopic critters thriving in the stream of Mother Ganga. My guide was patient and informative. We passed each of the Ghats, stepped structures of varying architectural origins in many stages of neglect and disarray, each the contribution of past dynasties and individuals with the resources to fund such a commemoration of their stature. About 3 minutes into the voyage I tried to take a picture with my small aim and shoot snapshot camera and discovered that the battery had died. There was no helpful lad to be dispatched from here to get a new one as there had been in Jaipur, so this time the photography gods stepped in and absolved me of any obligation to squinting in the name of archival documentation, however informal.
We traveled up the river as the sun rose, it was an astounding panorama. I had a similar feeling in the Paleolithic cavern at Peche-Mele in France, that the magnificence before me had to be an artifice. Knowing that this was the Ganges and that this was Benares wasn't helping to make what I saw more real. I knew very little about Benares. I had studied some of the other monuments I had visited, come to know them in an armchair way, knew what I would see if I turned left in their presence. Not so with Benares. I had only the visual presence of the city viewed from the river, and I was speechless and almost thoughtless beholding what was there. We turned back down river where the Ghats ended. The guides voice became just one of the noises of the city rising. The day got brighter as we went a short distance past where we had embarked, stopping at the burning Ghats, the notorious funerary institution situated by the Ganges, where people came to die. There wasn't much activity. I noted a number of tall smokestacks, indicating the presence of electric crematoria which were replacing some of the traditional wooden pyres because of air pollution.
This was the beginning of a different kind of magic. The guide led me up into the incredible maze of narrow streets in the old city, never more than four or five feet wide, all of them winding while undulating up and down, all of them defined by buildings that were several stories high. The effect was on of being in a grimy canyon. We went through the area where taking pictures were forbidden, the domain of the untouchables who handled the dead and weighed out the precise amount of firewood need for ceremonial cremation beside the river. Everything was sooty and dirty and without right angles, and the distance between the lives of myself and the people I was looking at never seemed greater. One fellow reminded me of a gypsy accordionist I had seen in Rome. He seemed to have materialized in this alley restaurant, a half-there vision of a man in a cheap plaid shirt with his fingers flying over the keys, producing hypnotic tarantellas in the warm Roman night. His eyes and facial expression were the same as the Indian firewood merchant. The expression said "I am the transient caretaker of my task, which has preceded and will exceed my lifetime. This is a task which will take up and discard the likes of me, as is needed." We walked on to less ominous surroundings, still claustrophobic, and I felt the chilling certainty that I could disappear in this place without a trace.
We went to the Vishwanath Temple, a temple to Shiva as the Lord of the universe, also called the Golden Temple, named so because there is 800 kilos of gold leaf on its roof and spires. We were still in tiny serpentine streets, only with many more people. You had to pass through businesses, there was no going around them, vendors and commerce were everywhere. We came to the Golden Temple, which amounted to a gateway that I might have walked past without notice. Non-Hindus weren't allowed in the Golden Temple, and I couldn't see much beyond the small vestibule visible from the street. There was a commotion within that I couldn't identify. I was escorted to a second story balcony across the narrow street where I couldn't see much more, a glimpse of some spires, if there was any gold it was covered in the patina of the city. There was an agitation present that seemed to keep everything in a state of tumbling flux. Here was the temple in its natural state, its functional state, not a patrician presiding over its surrounding in a state of manicured repose but a physical and spiritual vortex in a gnashing labyrinth of colors and smells and sounds, too close for comfort, too close to see. Here was another diagram of understanding, the impromptu ad hoc yantra of live and unmediated devotional fervor, in the city that knows how. It was as if I had been gradually coached in preparation for this moment, seeing the monuments as various formal vessels in pristine isolation, and now experiencing what these masterpieces were made to contain in the form and process of the Golden Temple, where the convergence of the local and non-local expressions of faith produced an implosion that comprised a monument more palpable than 800 kilos of gold. There was an irresistible magnetism to the place. I have no idea what chemistry was at work to formulate these impressions. A cynic would be hard put to be there and dismiss everything as a combination of exoticism and wishful thinking. This experience kicked my ass. The guide took me through another maze of narrow alleys, we had to retreat to a doorway under an internet sign to allow a sacred cow to pass, we went further in all directions and then descended some stairs into a subterranean garage like structure full of motorbikes and scooters, non of them functional. I considered that this may be the place where a turbaned seven footer with brass knuckles might be lurking to separate me from my senses and my Visa card. We ascended some stairs into a light well bounded by multistoried buildings, past a shrine of some sort festooned with marigolds, and then up more stairs to arrive at the showplace of my guides employer, a roly-poly silk merchant with a demeanor like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.
I had to take off my shoes because the floor was covered with a taut raw canvas, like a boxing ring without the ropes. I was given a cushion to sit on and a glass of tea. The proprietor regaled me with tales of visits to his place by none other than Goldie Hawn. It was his way tenderizing me in preparation for some major purchases. I was determined to resist this guy who thought Goldie Hawn in absentia could somehow loosen my purse strings , so I explained that I had already bought all of the gifts I intended to buy, and that I didn't want him to spend his time in what would be a futile pursuit. He answered cheerfully that this wasn't work, it was his life, and life was, after all, to be enjoyed. The platitudes oozed forth with a lubricated ease from this determined fellow. The show began. He had an assistant who would unfold beautiful bed covers, unfurl them with a choreographed flourish and then toss them in a heap. Another assistant would take the rejects away. I was stoic and impassive, which only made the guys work harder. The assistant brought out a stack of folded silk scarves, big ones with incredible brocade and gold thread. The merchant would grab a scarf while holding it at one end and fling it out into the room, the colors were like roman candles going off. Before one fluttered to the floor another one shot out and arced gracefully. I wondered what Goldie Hawn did in response to such a show. The assistant gathered up the scarves and then brought on batiks. One batik of Ganesha caught my eye, and the merchant sensed on some primal level that my resolve had faltered. He pounced. He turned up the heat with a virtuosos touch. He told me he knew that I must be a connoisseur because this image of Ganesha was special, a labor of love, unlike the mere products that surrounded it. I was enjoying this immensely, the showmanship, the acrobatic ad-libs that were now cementing the destiny of this image of Ganesha, the divine remover of obstacles, as the benchmark against which all who visited Benares, including Goldie Hawn would be measured, and I was going to get it for a piddling fifty bucks. I wanted to applaud. This was show biz. This was snake oil, vaudeville, the Commedia Del'Arte, Carnival, and you got to have a cool Ganesh batik too. I was sold, business was concluded, and I was led out of the maze to a cab and back to my hotel.
Later in the afternoon I decided I would venture out for a second time. This was miraculous, that I had sufficient energy to act on such an impulse, given my continually enervated state for most of my trip. The morning had been very intense and yet I seemed ready for more. I set out on foot, having noted the route from the main Ghats to my hotel, a relatively orderly passage compared to that of the oldest part of the city. I was walking down the street in Benares, the city of lights! I was on the street, not in a cab, and not en route to find cold medicine! I was elated to be at street level, traveling at the pace of the city, being within the writhing flux of Indian street life on its own level and at its own pace. Experiencing it from within was very tranquil except for the endless honking and music from various boom boxes. I decided to try some food from a street vendor. I purchased some pakoras, bits of vegetables in a lentil batter deep fried and served with a tamarind sauce. They cost 5 rupees, about ten cents, and were staggeringly delicious. I walked down the street and had a couple of potato patties, further on a samosa, all wonderful, all seemed a partaking of my surroundings on a new and more intimate level. I turned toward the Ghats at an intersection I remembered, and there was my guide from the morning enjoying a chai at a small stand. He seemed shocked to see me, as if I were some kind of unlicensed behemoth adrift without sanction or supervision. I was aware of the recent intimate yet severely conscribed connection we had experienced. There was a wonderful moment where our previous feelings seemed to pass, and he said "now we are equals". I agreed that this was a preferable situation. He told me he was very happy to have met someone like me and hoped that I would seek him out if I went to Benares again, via his employer. He graciously confirmed that I was headed in the right direction for the main Ghat and we parted.
I realized something was amiss. I became painfully aware that I was walking awkwardly. I had been so enthusiastic about feeling energetic for the first time in weeks that I had not noticed the aching in my knees, which now throbbed insistently. I slowed my pace a bit but refused to turn back, I was in Benares, god dammit, and I wanted to be there as fully as was possible even at the expense of future mobility. I came to the place where vehicular traffic was not allowed, the entry to the maze of the old city and paused to mentally flip a coin to choose which route to take. I was joined rather seamlessly by a young man who introduced himself as a Nepali textile worker. He asked if he could help he and I said I wanted to go to the river, I appreciated his concern, but that I had no desire to buy anything or hire anyone in order to achieve that end. He seemed slightly hurt by that remark and said he wasn't selling anything, that he just wanted to practice his English and talk to a foreigner. I started walking and soon he was leading me on a circuitous route traversing a distance that didn't correlate with my sense of how far it was from the entry point of the old city to the river. I finally told him that it seemed that we should have reached the river by now, it had been more than half an hour since we had set out, and he assured me that we were very close indeed. We turned a corner like every other corner we had turned, and there was the Ganges. We were at the farthest end of the Ghats, at the Assi Ghat, the place where we had turned back in the boat that morning. The riverside passage that was the most obvious route of return seemed perilous and demanding, particularly given the state of my leg and knees. As luck would have it, there was a solution. It just so happened that his friend, a guy about 150 years old, had a boat which I could hire for a leisurely return to the main Ghat. The little weenie didn't try to sell me anything, he simply lead me to someone who would. It was hilarious. It was late afternoon, the sun was setting, so I agreed to pay the guy 100 rupees, about two dollars, to row me back to where I started. It was a beautiful little voyage. The Ghats were populated by people doing pujas of all sorts, bathing, socializing, all extras doing their parts in the grand production that is the Holy City. I felt like I could deal with this strange place alone and it would all be ok. I hung around the Ghat until it got dark marveling at the naked guys, the beggars, the various touts and characters. I hired a bicycle rickshaw back to the hotel and was treated to a wild careening ride by a crazed high energy harlequin who looked back at me for approval every time he veered out the a certain death traffic misadventure. I was ready for anything.
The next morning I was aware that I had expended a great deal of energy the day before, but the suffocating sinus infection with its continuous rocky queasiness was almost entirely gone! I arranged to see some more sights. The driver took me to a series of tourist destinations, contemporary temples of varying degrees of interest, there was a rather strange temple, the Bharat Mata which featured a giant scale relief map of India, carved from marble to plan as well as elevation scale. Seeing the dramatic topography of the Himalayas and the vast river plains gave a sense of omniscience that was in contrast to the otherwise drab structure. There was the new Vishwanath Temple, a contemporary replica of the temple torn down by Muslim invaders to build a controversial mosque, Open to every caste and every nationality, a pink cake of a structure, without a compelling presence. We then went to Benares Hindu University, a large but totally unimpressive group of buildings reminiscent of a decaying military base. I laughed to myself recalling part of a routine by the Firesign Theater where a visitor to a Native American Reservation asks an occupant "What is the purpose of that collapsing outhouse?" The native replies "it is our Temple to the Sun"
Then, the real deal, The Durga Temple. I felt some of the same discordant agitation I felt at the Golden Temple. It was easier to verify the sources of the sights and sounds here at the Durga Temple but there was still something unaccounted for, something present, as vital as a sight or sound, but neither. Durga is the terrible form of Shiva's consort, Parvati. There is an area in front made of white stone that is permanently stained with the blood of goats sacrificed in her name. The temple is surrounded by a two story wall with an arched colonnade on the bottom, accessible to those within the compound, and covered walkway on top that gave the place the feeling of an arena. . A visitor can walk all the way around the temple and see much of what goes on in there, unlike the Golden Temple. The temple itself has tiered spires above the sanctum, it is blood red, with an open porch adjoining the sanctum supported by ornately carved pale columns. There were bells hanging from chains, and devotees who entered the porch to approach the deity reached up and rang the bells. From the vantage point atop the wall surrounding the temple you could look down through a grating onto a primal scene. The gratings purpose was to vent the smoke from a fire that was being tended by people seated in a circle who seemed to be priests. There was a miscellany of people standing immediately behind them. Another defining moment of seen/unseen, you could peer over the edge of the grating but the smoke and heat became uncomfortable and you had to withdraw, giving the scene below a jerky stop action quality that never quite added up. There was a muttering, there were gestures that seemed to involve throwing things in the fire to keep it going, there was the same agitation, a turmoil, a milling around that seemed to be a static charge generated by the abrading of two different realms. This was everywhere, especially in the vestibule to the temple, where people in brightly colored garments darted in and out of the sanctum. The green and white checkerboard pattern of the marble floor made them uneasy jittery pieces in a board game where you might be eaten. They seemed to be summoning the resolve to enter the sanctum to make their offerings of flowers and money, and they would come out almost immediately as if they were fleeing. The vortex aspect of the temple was all the more evident in seeing more of the devotional rituals that took place there, which perversely added to the mystery. I was and am unequipped to comprehend the degree to which devotional practice is imbedded in the everyday lives of these folks. There is simply no precedent for it in my experience. The sense that I would get closer to these experiences by being physically proximate to them was evaporating. The more I saw, the more what was beyond my grasp became evident. It was another kind of being pulled apart by the experience of India, of having capacities stretched to the edge of credibility. To take one or many steps further into the workings of the temple was futile. It was clear that if a foreigner or non believer entered these rituals things would grind to a halt, as if a Sumo wrestler in a tutu had walked into a saloon.
In that same afternoon I visited Sarnath, the purported site of the original sermons of Buddha to his five disciples. There was a colossal stupa on the site, other smaller monuments in a nicely maintained park setting, and a wonderful museum of Buddhist sculpture from various monuments in the area as well as from far away. I was completely unaware of the importance of Benares in Buddhist history and tradition. It was a startling contrast to the kind of fervid agitation I had seem at the Durga and Golden Temples. There were pilgrims from all over the Buddhist world: from Tibet, Bhutan, Japan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Viet Nam, Korea, many in traditional garments of either priests, nuns or pilgrims. The images in the museum were apparently still "live", still objects of reverence, a distinction that I found to be at the core of many of my responses to the sacred places I had seen. Many of those places and images them seemed spiritually vacated, and as an outsider I had no clue as to what informed the differences that seemed so dramatic. Here at Sarnath pilgrims would slowly proceed down a line of reliefs and free standing figures of Buddha and various Buddhist saints, lips moving soundlessly in some of prayer, while they reverently touched the knees of the figures with their foreheads. The knees of the figures were polished to a smooth reflective surface by the foreheads of legions of pilgrims. The silence of their devotion was so different from the percussion and agitation of the Durga folks that I had just witnessed.
I returned to the hotel to give my legs a rest, followed by one last foray into the streets for more wonderful dining. as I walked through the glittering evening I wondered "why Benares?" Why was this place the way it is, past and present? I felt that any accounting of the uniqueness of the city had to include the ever present feeling of fervor on the edge of control, a feeling that devotion could become violent. Perhaps the fact that there had been so many significant religious monuments of both Hindu and Moslem origins destroyed in Benares had permanently stained the city with this history of bloody reversals. I provisionally decided that Benares might represent the boundary between a wound and its opposite. The frontier between trauma and wholeness is a fluid distinction. There is no point where equilibrium and chaos exist side by side, oblivious of each other. The hope of restitution and the despair of loss intermingle in the intense zone between wholeness and shattered, that zone that could be called the healing, perhaps Benares describes the healing place of the Indian Soul. That evening as I prepared to leave yet another hotel after yet another round of saturation exposure to marvels I could barely comprehend, I felt that I had finally arrived in India.
© Richard A. Berger. All rights reserved.
The hotel, the Hindustani International, was near a Mosque and I was awakened by the 5 AM call to prayer. Six AM came way too soon. I nonetheless dragged myself out of bed and met the cab to take me to the Ghats and the sunrise boat ride. The cabbie took me as far as vehicular traffic was allowed and introduced me to a guide who was of course a shill for a local merchant who would invite me "just to look" at his merchandise after the morning boat trip. We descended the steps of the main Ghat and I was relieved to see that I wasn't being shunted onto one of the crowded boats full of people in baggy shorts, laden with fanny packs and video cameras and wearing stupid hats. I'm sure my hat was as stupid as theirs, but I was in no mood to be reminded of that fact, and I refused to flaunt my chubby thighs in a country where so many people needed more to eat than they were actually getting. The guide took me to a small boat, made a deal with the boatman, and we embarked. The river was very eerie at that hour, it was dark, misty, and there were hundreds of lit candles floating on the water, offered there by visitors in order to bring good fortune. As I was teetering into the boat I was approached by an angelic little girl who sold me four candles- they were actually a shallow paper cup, like a cupcake wrapper, with a candle and a marigold in the middle. As the boat left the shore I lit them, silently said some names of departed folks that were always with me and sent them on their way to flicker in the dawn.
The boatman had a white beard and a wiry frame. He seemed too old to be doing such work. I enjoyed the rhythm of the oars, the whoosh of the water and the gliding pauses. There were only tourists on the river, we were passed by bigger boats that were motorized, with lots of LCD screens of video cameras glowing in the murk. All the sounds were indistinct and muffled. There were bathers along the shore either ladling the water over themselves or immersing. The water looked clear and inviting even though there were terrifying statistics about the microscopic critters thriving in the stream of Mother Ganga. My guide was patient and informative. We passed each of the Ghats, stepped structures of varying architectural origins in many stages of neglect and disarray, each the contribution of past dynasties and individuals with the resources to fund such a commemoration of their stature. About 3 minutes into the voyage I tried to take a picture with my small aim and shoot snapshot camera and discovered that the battery had died. There was no helpful lad to be dispatched from here to get a new one as there had been in Jaipur, so this time the photography gods stepped in and absolved me of any obligation to squinting in the name of archival documentation, however informal.
We traveled up the river as the sun rose, it was an astounding panorama. I had a similar feeling in the Paleolithic cavern at Peche-Mele in France, that the magnificence before me had to be an artifice. Knowing that this was the Ganges and that this was Benares wasn't helping to make what I saw more real. I knew very little about Benares. I had studied some of the other monuments I had visited, come to know them in an armchair way, knew what I would see if I turned left in their presence. Not so with Benares. I had only the visual presence of the city viewed from the river, and I was speechless and almost thoughtless beholding what was there. We turned back down river where the Ghats ended. The guides voice became just one of the noises of the city rising. The day got brighter as we went a short distance past where we had embarked, stopping at the burning Ghats, the notorious funerary institution situated by the Ganges, where people came to die. There wasn't much activity. I noted a number of tall smokestacks, indicating the presence of electric crematoria which were replacing some of the traditional wooden pyres because of air pollution.
This was the beginning of a different kind of magic. The guide led me up into the incredible maze of narrow streets in the old city, never more than four or five feet wide, all of them winding while undulating up and down, all of them defined by buildings that were several stories high. The effect was on of being in a grimy canyon. We went through the area where taking pictures were forbidden, the domain of the untouchables who handled the dead and weighed out the precise amount of firewood need for ceremonial cremation beside the river. Everything was sooty and dirty and without right angles, and the distance between the lives of myself and the people I was looking at never seemed greater. One fellow reminded me of a gypsy accordionist I had seen in Rome. He seemed to have materialized in this alley restaurant, a half-there vision of a man in a cheap plaid shirt with his fingers flying over the keys, producing hypnotic tarantellas in the warm Roman night. His eyes and facial expression were the same as the Indian firewood merchant. The expression said "I am the transient caretaker of my task, which has preceded and will exceed my lifetime. This is a task which will take up and discard the likes of me, as is needed." We walked on to less ominous surroundings, still claustrophobic, and I felt the chilling certainty that I could disappear in this place without a trace.
We went to the Vishwanath Temple, a temple to Shiva as the Lord of the universe, also called the Golden Temple, named so because there is 800 kilos of gold leaf on its roof and spires. We were still in tiny serpentine streets, only with many more people. You had to pass through businesses, there was no going around them, vendors and commerce were everywhere. We came to the Golden Temple, which amounted to a gateway that I might have walked past without notice. Non-Hindus weren't allowed in the Golden Temple, and I couldn't see much beyond the small vestibule visible from the street. There was a commotion within that I couldn't identify. I was escorted to a second story balcony across the narrow street where I couldn't see much more, a glimpse of some spires, if there was any gold it was covered in the patina of the city. There was an agitation present that seemed to keep everything in a state of tumbling flux. Here was the temple in its natural state, its functional state, not a patrician presiding over its surrounding in a state of manicured repose but a physical and spiritual vortex in a gnashing labyrinth of colors and smells and sounds, too close for comfort, too close to see. Here was another diagram of understanding, the impromptu ad hoc yantra of live and unmediated devotional fervor, in the city that knows how. It was as if I had been gradually coached in preparation for this moment, seeing the monuments as various formal vessels in pristine isolation, and now experiencing what these masterpieces were made to contain in the form and process of the Golden Temple, where the convergence of the local and non-local expressions of faith produced an implosion that comprised a monument more palpable than 800 kilos of gold. There was an irresistible magnetism to the place. I have no idea what chemistry was at work to formulate these impressions. A cynic would be hard put to be there and dismiss everything as a combination of exoticism and wishful thinking. This experience kicked my ass. The guide took me through another maze of narrow alleys, we had to retreat to a doorway under an internet sign to allow a sacred cow to pass, we went further in all directions and then descended some stairs into a subterranean garage like structure full of motorbikes and scooters, non of them functional. I considered that this may be the place where a turbaned seven footer with brass knuckles might be lurking to separate me from my senses and my Visa card. We ascended some stairs into a light well bounded by multistoried buildings, past a shrine of some sort festooned with marigolds, and then up more stairs to arrive at the showplace of my guides employer, a roly-poly silk merchant with a demeanor like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.
I had to take off my shoes because the floor was covered with a taut raw canvas, like a boxing ring without the ropes. I was given a cushion to sit on and a glass of tea. The proprietor regaled me with tales of visits to his place by none other than Goldie Hawn. It was his way tenderizing me in preparation for some major purchases. I was determined to resist this guy who thought Goldie Hawn in absentia could somehow loosen my purse strings , so I explained that I had already bought all of the gifts I intended to buy, and that I didn't want him to spend his time in what would be a futile pursuit. He answered cheerfully that this wasn't work, it was his life, and life was, after all, to be enjoyed. The platitudes oozed forth with a lubricated ease from this determined fellow. The show began. He had an assistant who would unfold beautiful bed covers, unfurl them with a choreographed flourish and then toss them in a heap. Another assistant would take the rejects away. I was stoic and impassive, which only made the guys work harder. The assistant brought out a stack of folded silk scarves, big ones with incredible brocade and gold thread. The merchant would grab a scarf while holding it at one end and fling it out into the room, the colors were like roman candles going off. Before one fluttered to the floor another one shot out and arced gracefully. I wondered what Goldie Hawn did in response to such a show. The assistant gathered up the scarves and then brought on batiks. One batik of Ganesha caught my eye, and the merchant sensed on some primal level that my resolve had faltered. He pounced. He turned up the heat with a virtuosos touch. He told me he knew that I must be a connoisseur because this image of Ganesha was special, a labor of love, unlike the mere products that surrounded it. I was enjoying this immensely, the showmanship, the acrobatic ad-libs that were now cementing the destiny of this image of Ganesha, the divine remover of obstacles, as the benchmark against which all who visited Benares, including Goldie Hawn would be measured, and I was going to get it for a piddling fifty bucks. I wanted to applaud. This was show biz. This was snake oil, vaudeville, the Commedia Del'Arte, Carnival, and you got to have a cool Ganesh batik too. I was sold, business was concluded, and I was led out of the maze to a cab and back to my hotel.
Later in the afternoon I decided I would venture out for a second time. This was miraculous, that I had sufficient energy to act on such an impulse, given my continually enervated state for most of my trip. The morning had been very intense and yet I seemed ready for more. I set out on foot, having noted the route from the main Ghats to my hotel, a relatively orderly passage compared to that of the oldest part of the city. I was walking down the street in Benares, the city of lights! I was on the street, not in a cab, and not en route to find cold medicine! I was elated to be at street level, traveling at the pace of the city, being within the writhing flux of Indian street life on its own level and at its own pace. Experiencing it from within was very tranquil except for the endless honking and music from various boom boxes. I decided to try some food from a street vendor. I purchased some pakoras, bits of vegetables in a lentil batter deep fried and served with a tamarind sauce. They cost 5 rupees, about ten cents, and were staggeringly delicious. I walked down the street and had a couple of potato patties, further on a samosa, all wonderful, all seemed a partaking of my surroundings on a new and more intimate level. I turned toward the Ghats at an intersection I remembered, and there was my guide from the morning enjoying a chai at a small stand. He seemed shocked to see me, as if I were some kind of unlicensed behemoth adrift without sanction or supervision. I was aware of the recent intimate yet severely conscribed connection we had experienced. There was a wonderful moment where our previous feelings seemed to pass, and he said "now we are equals". I agreed that this was a preferable situation. He told me he was very happy to have met someone like me and hoped that I would seek him out if I went to Benares again, via his employer. He graciously confirmed that I was headed in the right direction for the main Ghat and we parted.
I realized something was amiss. I became painfully aware that I was walking awkwardly. I had been so enthusiastic about feeling energetic for the first time in weeks that I had not noticed the aching in my knees, which now throbbed insistently. I slowed my pace a bit but refused to turn back, I was in Benares, god dammit, and I wanted to be there as fully as was possible even at the expense of future mobility. I came to the place where vehicular traffic was not allowed, the entry to the maze of the old city and paused to mentally flip a coin to choose which route to take. I was joined rather seamlessly by a young man who introduced himself as a Nepali textile worker. He asked if he could help he and I said I wanted to go to the river, I appreciated his concern, but that I had no desire to buy anything or hire anyone in order to achieve that end. He seemed slightly hurt by that remark and said he wasn't selling anything, that he just wanted to practice his English and talk to a foreigner. I started walking and soon he was leading me on a circuitous route traversing a distance that didn't correlate with my sense of how far it was from the entry point of the old city to the river. I finally told him that it seemed that we should have reached the river by now, it had been more than half an hour since we had set out, and he assured me that we were very close indeed. We turned a corner like every other corner we had turned, and there was the Ganges. We were at the farthest end of the Ghats, at the Assi Ghat, the place where we had turned back in the boat that morning. The riverside passage that was the most obvious route of return seemed perilous and demanding, particularly given the state of my leg and knees. As luck would have it, there was a solution. It just so happened that his friend, a guy about 150 years old, had a boat which I could hire for a leisurely return to the main Ghat. The little weenie didn't try to sell me anything, he simply lead me to someone who would. It was hilarious. It was late afternoon, the sun was setting, so I agreed to pay the guy 100 rupees, about two dollars, to row me back to where I started. It was a beautiful little voyage. The Ghats were populated by people doing pujas of all sorts, bathing, socializing, all extras doing their parts in the grand production that is the Holy City. I felt like I could deal with this strange place alone and it would all be ok. I hung around the Ghat until it got dark marveling at the naked guys, the beggars, the various touts and characters. I hired a bicycle rickshaw back to the hotel and was treated to a wild careening ride by a crazed high energy harlequin who looked back at me for approval every time he veered out the a certain death traffic misadventure. I was ready for anything.
The next morning I was aware that I had expended a great deal of energy the day before, but the suffocating sinus infection with its continuous rocky queasiness was almost entirely gone! I arranged to see some more sights. The driver took me to a series of tourist destinations, contemporary temples of varying degrees of interest, there was a rather strange temple, the Bharat Mata which featured a giant scale relief map of India, carved from marble to plan as well as elevation scale. Seeing the dramatic topography of the Himalayas and the vast river plains gave a sense of omniscience that was in contrast to the otherwise drab structure. There was the new Vishwanath Temple, a contemporary replica of the temple torn down by Muslim invaders to build a controversial mosque, Open to every caste and every nationality, a pink cake of a structure, without a compelling presence. We then went to Benares Hindu University, a large but totally unimpressive group of buildings reminiscent of a decaying military base. I laughed to myself recalling part of a routine by the Firesign Theater where a visitor to a Native American Reservation asks an occupant "What is the purpose of that collapsing outhouse?" The native replies "it is our Temple to the Sun"
Then, the real deal, The Durga Temple. I felt some of the same discordant agitation I felt at the Golden Temple. It was easier to verify the sources of the sights and sounds here at the Durga Temple but there was still something unaccounted for, something present, as vital as a sight or sound, but neither. Durga is the terrible form of Shiva's consort, Parvati. There is an area in front made of white stone that is permanently stained with the blood of goats sacrificed in her name. The temple is surrounded by a two story wall with an arched colonnade on the bottom, accessible to those within the compound, and covered walkway on top that gave the place the feeling of an arena. . A visitor can walk all the way around the temple and see much of what goes on in there, unlike the Golden Temple. The temple itself has tiered spires above the sanctum, it is blood red, with an open porch adjoining the sanctum supported by ornately carved pale columns. There were bells hanging from chains, and devotees who entered the porch to approach the deity reached up and rang the bells. From the vantage point atop the wall surrounding the temple you could look down through a grating onto a primal scene. The gratings purpose was to vent the smoke from a fire that was being tended by people seated in a circle who seemed to be priests. There was a miscellany of people standing immediately behind them. Another defining moment of seen/unseen, you could peer over the edge of the grating but the smoke and heat became uncomfortable and you had to withdraw, giving the scene below a jerky stop action quality that never quite added up. There was a muttering, there were gestures that seemed to involve throwing things in the fire to keep it going, there was the same agitation, a turmoil, a milling around that seemed to be a static charge generated by the abrading of two different realms. This was everywhere, especially in the vestibule to the temple, where people in brightly colored garments darted in and out of the sanctum. The green and white checkerboard pattern of the marble floor made them uneasy jittery pieces in a board game where you might be eaten. They seemed to be summoning the resolve to enter the sanctum to make their offerings of flowers and money, and they would come out almost immediately as if they were fleeing. The vortex aspect of the temple was all the more evident in seeing more of the devotional rituals that took place there, which perversely added to the mystery. I was and am unequipped to comprehend the degree to which devotional practice is imbedded in the everyday lives of these folks. There is simply no precedent for it in my experience. The sense that I would get closer to these experiences by being physically proximate to them was evaporating. The more I saw, the more what was beyond my grasp became evident. It was another kind of being pulled apart by the experience of India, of having capacities stretched to the edge of credibility. To take one or many steps further into the workings of the temple was futile. It was clear that if a foreigner or non believer entered these rituals things would grind to a halt, as if a Sumo wrestler in a tutu had walked into a saloon.
In that same afternoon I visited Sarnath, the purported site of the original sermons of Buddha to his five disciples. There was a colossal stupa on the site, other smaller monuments in a nicely maintained park setting, and a wonderful museum of Buddhist sculpture from various monuments in the area as well as from far away. I was completely unaware of the importance of Benares in Buddhist history and tradition. It was a startling contrast to the kind of fervid agitation I had seem at the Durga and Golden Temples. There were pilgrims from all over the Buddhist world: from Tibet, Bhutan, Japan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Viet Nam, Korea, many in traditional garments of either priests, nuns or pilgrims. The images in the museum were apparently still "live", still objects of reverence, a distinction that I found to be at the core of many of my responses to the sacred places I had seen. Many of those places and images them seemed spiritually vacated, and as an outsider I had no clue as to what informed the differences that seemed so dramatic. Here at Sarnath pilgrims would slowly proceed down a line of reliefs and free standing figures of Buddha and various Buddhist saints, lips moving soundlessly in some of prayer, while they reverently touched the knees of the figures with their foreheads. The knees of the figures were polished to a smooth reflective surface by the foreheads of legions of pilgrims. The silence of their devotion was so different from the percussion and agitation of the Durga folks that I had just witnessed.
I returned to the hotel to give my legs a rest, followed by one last foray into the streets for more wonderful dining. as I walked through the glittering evening I wondered "why Benares?" Why was this place the way it is, past and present? I felt that any accounting of the uniqueness of the city had to include the ever present feeling of fervor on the edge of control, a feeling that devotion could become violent. Perhaps the fact that there had been so many significant religious monuments of both Hindu and Moslem origins destroyed in Benares had permanently stained the city with this history of bloody reversals. I provisionally decided that Benares might represent the boundary between a wound and its opposite. The frontier between trauma and wholeness is a fluid distinction. There is no point where equilibrium and chaos exist side by side, oblivious of each other. The hope of restitution and the despair of loss intermingle in the intense zone between wholeness and shattered, that zone that could be called the healing, perhaps Benares describes the healing place of the Indian Soul. That evening as I prepared to leave yet another hotel after yet another round of saturation exposure to marvels I could barely comprehend, I felt that I had finally arrived in India.
© Richard A. Berger. All rights reserved.