Video: A sadhu singing by the Ganges River, Varanasi

One of the best gifts travel gives you is all the great music you wouldn’t otherwise hear. Strange tunes often stick in the mind long after the memories of meals and sights have dimmed. Last week I brought you a video of a kalimba player in Malawi. Here’s a completely different tune from a completely different country, yet both tunes have gotten into my head.

This man is a sadhu, one of the countless Hindu holy men who wander the city streets and country roads of India preaching the tenets of Hinduism. He’s playing by the Ganges River in Varanasi, one of the holiest spots for Hindus. Watch how he plays two instruments and sings with ease. The camera is a bit shaky at the beginning but gets much better. Does anyone know what he’s singing?

Indian odyssey: A Holi debauch in Varanasi

Varanasi, City of Death, City of Passage to Worlds Beyond.

Founded by Lord Shiva on the banks of the holy Ganges, Varanasi (once known as Benares) occupies the most sacred land in India, and is a reputed tirtha (passage point to the Other World). For at least 3,000 years Varanasi has drawn India’s dying, specifically those dying Hindus seeking release from Samsara, the burdensome cycle of birth, death, and rebirth in which all beings are karmically rewarded or punished for their deeds on earth with a new round of existence, accordingly torturous or pleasant. However, if you expire in Varanasi, have yourself cremated in a pyre beneath the handless clock of Manikarnika Ghat, and have your ashes consigned to the Ganges, you achieve moksha, the highest release possible, the most munificent mercy of all: freedom from Samsara, everlasting surcease of suffering and dispatch to the ethereal Void beyond the world of the flesh.

Well-read travelers to India probably know this much about Varanasi even before arriving. But Varanasi is not only a citadel of mortal passage and spiritual relief. Soot-stained, chock-full of crumbling temples and hostels for the moribund and screeching monkeys, reeking of incense and sandalwood and less salubrious odors, ostensibly holy Varanasi is also home to some 3 million human beings with entirely mundane, even profane, proclivities. I found myself with an unexpected chance to see this for myself during my third sojourn there, two years ago, during the springtime Hindu festival of Holi, when people ritualistically splash each other with colored dyes and ignite corner bonfires in celebration of the deity Prahlad´s escape from the flames into which the demoness Holika had cast him. There are other rites associated with Holi, but for some youths celebratory antics have recently taken more serious turns involving drunkenness and debauchery, the groping of female tourists foolish enough to wander the streets, even assault and rape.

All of which prompted me to wish for Holi’s end even before it had started. As it was, an undercurrent of violence seemed to flow through the city, born of overpopulation, caste-related violence in the surrounding countryside, and desperate poverty. My Varanasi-born Indian friend, whom I will call Rajiv here, to protect his identity, sensed my trepidation, and invited me to festivities he was arranging for later in the day.

“Holi out on the streets is one thing,” Rajiv said. “But I will show you another.” He winked slyly. “If you attend my party, I promise you will not regret it.”In his forties, Rajiv was a landowner and builder with money and status — an Indian Big Man, as it were. He was erudite and earthy, devoted to his gods, and a man of inestimable good humor who nevertheless managed to succeed in Varanasi´s challenging environment of violence and corruption. He was also generous, perhaps to a fault.

“I’m throwing a Holi party for our laborers” — mostly migrants from Uttar Pradesh state who led lives of unimaginable penury and deprivation. “I will show them a good time. One like they never get a chance to see.” He winked again, and smiled slyly. “A real good time.” The local district administrator would be there, along with a high-ranking official from the state security services. Big Men all. My safety, he said, was “guaranteed.” Which seemed to indicate it could be dangerous indeed. Just dangerous enough to intrigue me.

“What time should I be there?” I asked.

The day waned and darkness fell, but the March heat hardly abated. I was not to walk the Holi-stricken streets of Varanasi alone. One of Rajiv’s servants pulled up to my doorway on a motorcycle and I hopped aboard for a rumbling, tipsy-turvy ride down yard-wide, serpentine streets, to one of Rajiv’s properties, a three-story cement building, stained with ashes from Varanasi´s endlessly burning cremation fires. The event he was staging would call for privacy, so it would be held on a rooftop enclosed within walls.

The party was already on. With a pistol stuffed in his belt, seated behind a table, dressed in a sweat-blotched sleeveless t-shirt, Rajiv was ministering to his flock: some twenty pencil-thin men in robes and turbans squatting above paper plates piled high with steaming dhal and vegetables, which they scooped up and ate with their fingers. His brother, a powerful fellow who had received training in hand-to-hand combat, was also in attendance and seated behind the table, armed with a handgun as well.

“Get up!” Rajiv commanded his guests, pulling a bottle of English whiskey from a box packed with more of the same at his side. The workers arose, and with downcast eyes, formed a line. Rajiv handed each one a plastic cup, which he filled to the brim with booze. “Keep it moving!” he said. The laborers applied his command to their elbows. They upended their cups of whiskey, burped raucously and shook their heads, walked on, and straightaway got back in line. This was no doubt the first time anyone had treated them to whiskey, a proscribed substance in Hinduism, and illegal within the sacred precincts of central Varanasi.

This was the first time anyone had treated them to whiskey, a proscribed substance in Hinduism, and illegal within the sacred precincts of central Varanasi.

Soon the administrator and the security chief arrived, pot-bellied men in plaid shirts, well-coiffed, splashed with cologne, their collars starched, their cheeks immaculately shaved. They nodded greetings to me, without a smile. Rajiv pulled another bottle of whiskey — higher-grade hooch reserved for Big Men — and poured us honorary Big Men cupfuls. I sniffed it. I don’t usually drink whiskey, but this was fine stuff. We all downed our shots and pulled up chairs by Rajiv. Soon I broke into a sweat, and felt the whiskey burn its way through my capillaries. Mists were now drifting over the rooftop, the humidity was rising, the workers, a few already drunk, were talking louder and louder. The whiskey high hit me fast and hard. How fine it was to be in India! I proposed a toast to my host, who was showing me there was nothing to fear, and, indeed, much to enjoy, in Holi.

But Rajiv was struggling urgently to keep up with the workers and their outstretched hands. “Keep moving!” he shouted, pouring the wondrous bronze elixir into their wobbly cups. Slackers were not allowed; each continuously drank his share to the dregs and returned to the end of the line. Intentionally or not, Rajiv was prompting them to drink much, and rapidly. He turned to me. “I’m doing these fellows a good deed. They don’t get a chance to drink whiskey in their villages. So they will never forget this Holi!”

In other circumstances, I might have ascribed all sorts of abstemious virtues to these impoverished laborers. Knowing little of their lives, but having many preconceptions about India, I would have doubted whether they would drink alcohol, even if offered it for free, or engaged in other vices. Now I saw the truth.

It might seem wrong to some to watch villagers being debauched, but a certain amount of vice keeps people human, whatever their social status. I noticed that the administrator drank at the same pace as they, and soon was leaning into my face, belching whiskey fumes and trying to tell me something of great apparent significance. The security chief kept to himself, working his elbow up and down, his eyes slowly losing focus. All livened up when someone popped a cassette tape into a boom box, and raucous Indian dance music blared forth. Instants later workers were leaping about in frantic sloppy duets, their turbans unraveling, sweat spinning off their foreheads. Men all, drunker and drunker, they began hip-thrusting belly dance moves with each other, with the occasional fall onto the concrete floor.

At some barely perceptible moment, when ragged clouds drifted over the moon and a fetid stench arose from the streets, the party’s mood shifted. Sweating profusely, the security chief slumped in his seat, babbling incoherently. The administrator lifted his finger, as if to make an announcement of momentous import, but staggered past me, vomited onto his shirt, and collapsed. Shouts arose — the workers, bleary-eyed and soaked in perspiration, were berating their sloggered Bihari supervisor, who lashed out at them with his fists. Those still dancing took to shoving one another and cursing. A melee was erupting.

Rajiv jumped to his feet, brandishing his pistol, as did his brother. Both grabbed the workers and started breaking up the squabbles, shouting violently and calling for order, their commands drowned out by the music. The Bihari hardly appreciated any of this. He fell onto a chair, vomited into his lap, and then collapsed onto the cement. Finally, even I was called into service as a bouncer of sorts.

The administrator and the security officer had had enough. They staggered to their feet and leaned on the shoulders of their own servants, who walked them carefully to the stairwell. A half-hour later, we had herded the laborers back out onto the streets and were alone on the rooftop amid puddles of vomit, crushed dhal-splattered plates, soiled turbans, and broken plastic cups.

Whatever Varanasi was, it was above all a hive of humanity, with only a superficial layer of sanctity that covered its multi-faceted identity. It was not as it seemed, which accorded perfectly with the Indian concept of Maya, the veil of illusion shrouding the realities of our world, realities common to India and the West.

A Sanskrit hymn echoed from a nearby temple, a mist twirled up from the Ganges, swathing in white beggars and holy men and commonplace sinners like us alike. We drank the last of our whiskey and got ready to leave. Servants would clean up the mess in the morning. We filed down the stairway toward the street, where Rajiv’s assistants had the motorcycle engines rumbling.

“Happy Holi!” Rajiv said to me, wiping sweat from his brow. We boarded his motorcycle. Glow from the pyres of Manikarnika Ghat reached into the skies, and we bounced off into the serpentine lanes leading back to his home.

*****

Jeffrey Tayler is the Moscow-based correspondent for The Atlantic and the author of numerous books, including Siberian Dawn, Facing the Congo, Glory in a Camel’s Eye, Angry Wind, and River of No Reprieve. His most recent book is Murderers in Mausoleums. He is also a contributor to Conde Nast Traveler, National Geographic, Harper’s, and Smithsonian magazines.

[Photos: Flickr | abrinsky; Woodlouse; Diganta Talukdar; Kyle May]

Quarter million animals sacrificed at Hindu festival

Hinduism is generally thought of as a vegetarian religion, one that respects animals because in the cycle of death and rebirth, we’ve all been animals at one point or another. But Hinduism is an ancient and complex faith with almost a billion adherents, and there’s such a diversity that virtually no common thread can be found in all methods of Hindu worship.

Nothing proves that more true than Gadhimai Mela, a fair that takes places once every five years in southern Nepal to honor the goddess Gadhimai. Tens of thousands of pilgrims from Nepal and India have gathered to offer animal sacrifices to the goddess in return for blessings. One man who prayed for a son at the last festival had his wish granted, and this year reportedly sacrificed 105 buffaloes.

Animal rights campaigners protesting the festival have had no success. The Indian pilgrims came all the way to Nepal because animal sacrifice is illegal in India, and they’re not going to be stopped. The BBC estimates that a quarter of a million animals, from pigeons to lambs to buffaloes, will be sacrificed. Local tanners and butchers are doing a brisk trade, as are the illicit stills set up to entertain the pilgrims. Six people have already died from drinking illegal home brew.

This isn’t the only animal sacrifice in Hinduism. It’s been popular in various times and places in the Hindu world and there are numerous references to it in holy texts, including a horse sacrifice in the famous epic the Ramayana, shown here.

Will Varanasi and Sarnath join the World Heritage list?

It’s World Heritage Week from November 19-25 and countries around the globe are celebrating the priceless treasures that UNESCO, which runs the list, is helping to preserve.

But one country, India, is wondering why two of its most famous places aren’t on the list. India has no shortage of World Heritage Sites, like the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort, but the 3500 year-old holy city of Varanasi (Benares) isn’t on the list and the Buddhist shrines at Sarnath are only on the tentative list.

This seems like an odd oversight. Varanasi is a beautiful, chaotic, ancient city on the banks of the Ganges. Nobody knows just how many temples there are here, from massive golden structures with elegant statues to little flagstones carved with a lotus flower and daubed with a bit of paint or an offering of a flower. It seems that when you are close to the river you cannot look anywhere without seeing a temple or shrine. In fact, it’s hard not to see several of them! The riverbank is famous for its burning ghats, platforms where Hindus are cremated before their remains are tossed into the holy Ganges River. But like in Hinduism itself, death and life are two parts of the same process. While people are mourning along one section of the riverside, not far off the dhobis are washing clothes, spreading out colorful saris like terrestrial rainbows, while old men play chess and kids frolic in the water. The ghats are strange mixture of morbid reminders of mortality and the throbbing life that makes India so exciting.

Nearby Sarnath is where Buddha is said to have preached his first sermon, and there are numerous temples in the representing all the Buddhist countries in the world. It’s interesting to see Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and other temples all together, attended by monks of all different nationalities.The peaceful, semi-rural surroundings make a stark contrast to noisy Varanasi.

So why aren’t these two places, so popular with visitors and so important to world heritage, not on the list? Nobody seems to have a good answer, but the Indian press does have some complaints about how they are treated, not by UNESCO, but by the Indians themselves. An article in the Times of India complains that the temples of Varanasi aren’t properly preserved. The stone temple of Kashi Vishwanath, shown here and built in 1777, was recently painted using enamel paint, which can seriously damage the stone. Now curators are facing a hefty preservation bill if they want to save one of the most important temples to Shiva. A recent study found about 2,000 temples in Varanasi that need help, but nobody is sure of the true extent of the problem.

Sarnath was submitted for consideration in 1998. Now it appears poised to get on the list. While the older temples and monuments have crumbled with time, the newer temples are in good condition and give the visitor or pilgrim a world tour of Buddhist practice. Here’s hoping Sarnath makes it onto the list soon, and that India will increase its efforts to preserve Varanasi and get it on the World Heritage List too.

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Julia Roberts angers villagers in India during a Hindu holiday

When Julia Roberts and her film crew took over a temple in Pataudi, a small town south of New Delhi, India last week, the locals weren’t too happy about it. Perhaps if the timing of the temple’s film shoot for “Eat, Pray, Love” had been better planned there wouldn’t have been an issue.

Instead, it seems that the folks who scouted out the temple as a location didn’t do their homework about when taking over the temple would be less problematic for the people who use the temple for it’s original purpose–praying and worship. Navaratri, an important nine-day religious festival was happening at the same time of the filming of Robert’s latest project.

This snafu created a mess of bad feelings.

Coinciding with the beginning of autumn, Navaratri’s purpose is for people to worship manifestations of the Divine Mother. It’s one of the most important Hindu holidays. Because Julia and her gang had taken the temple over, no one was allowed in, thus the villagers weren’t able to worship there–something they’ve done every Navaratri, I’m sure, ever since the temple was built.

Navaratri is centered on three Hindu goddesses: Durga, the warrior goddess; Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity; and Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge. If they had been able to access the temple, the villagers would have been offering prayers for the protection of health and prosperity.

Ironically, it seems as if Roberts has been able to access the power of two of those goddesses–Durga and Lakshmi just fine which possibly has led the villagers to wonder if she is making a movie that ought to be called “Eat, Pray, Love–but Not Here.”

The goddess that Robert’s and gang should have spent a little more time accessing is Saraswati. Knowledge about a culture goes a long way when traversing holy ground.

Hopefully, Roberts and the producers have figured out some way to make amends. At the time of this BBC article, the people in charge of filming weren’t talking about the issue. The villagers certainly were.

Yesterday, Navaratri ended with Dussera which celebrates the victory of good over evil and the motherhood of God.

In case any location folks want to film in a Hindu temple, here’s a link to the BBC resource, “Religion and Ethics tools.” It tells when the Hindu holidays will occur through 2013.