The Taj Mahal

Having said how efficient the trains are in India, the next one I got on – Varanasi to Agra – was six hours late. I had planned this last section of my travels carefully and booked myself on a train to arrive at 5.45am. I would put my case in left luggage at Agra station and go straight to the Taj Mahal and see it bathed in early morning light. Then I would see the Fort, wander about a bit, and get a bus to Delhi. Simples.

Instead I arrived at 11.30 when the sun was high (except it was overcast) and I felt horribly crumpled, tired  and dirty. I paid a taxi for 4 hours to take me on a tour, locked my case in the boot, and Rashid was my excellent guide.  

“Madam,” he said to me (better than Aunty) “when you walk through that arch and see the Taj Mahal, for a moment your heart will stop.”  And he was right. It is just the most breathtaking thing you can imagine – milky white marble raised up so the backdrop is just sky. Even on a slightly dull day it takes your breath away. If you have seen it you will know what I mean and if you haven’t, put it on your list.

Then I had lunch and a minor detour to a workshop where they make inlaid marble in just the same way as the marble at the Taj was inlaid 350 years ago... and then to the bus stop. Five hours later, with a/c set to superfrost, I arrived back in Delhi and met Hari my Sikh taxi-driver friend who had put me on the train at Delhi Cantt 10 weeks ago. He wasn’t in the best mood, not just because my bus was an hour late, but because “Madam, my brother is in trouble..” His brother had been stopped by the police for having no license.. which might have been sorted with a bribe, but his insurance was out of date too...   So we stopped under a flyover and Hari went with his license to try to sort it out. I stayed in the car.

Hari insisted that, for the inconvenience, he would buy me a beer. No really, Hari, I don’t need a beer (it was getting on for 10pm) “I have turned off the road for the beer shop now,” he snapped, “do you want two beers?” No, really, please just one, a small one. It was a Kingfisher beer with a red label marked strong.. and it was. So Olly greeted me back at the flat – very tired and grubby, dragging my suitcase and clutching a can of strong lager...  Home in 3 days.

Mother Ganga

Varanasi is the spiritual centre of Hinduism and I was there at the beginning of a big Shiva festival. The place was awash with bare-footed pilgrims, walking from the station, bathing in the river, laughing and praying.  It ‘s mainly the young men who are dressed in orange - many wet from the river - jogging, eyes front, holding bamboo canes at shoulder height hung with  offerings of flowers and beads and incense burning, and heading for the Golden Temple.

I couldn’t exaggerate the importance of the River Ganges - Mother Ganga – she is a goddess to Hindu people. For the living the waters of the river will wash away sins, and for the dead to have their ashes cast upon her water is the most direct route to heaven. There is the irony. It is hard to equate the Ganga’s cleansing powers with water that runs completely off the pollution clock..  it teems with sewerage, dead bodies and waterborne diseases. Efforts are being made to clean the river, but like everything in India, it is the scale of the problem that is so daunting.

You see all manner of life here – people bathing, praying, doing their yoga, washing their clothes, gossiping, – it happen all along the ghats. (Ghats are the areas wide stretches of steps down to the waters edge which, in Varanasi, are all along the west side of the Ganga).

The first evening I was taken, along with Tony and Tina from Taiwan (Taipei!) to walk to the burning ghat.  Three or four fires were burning out, and a new one, unlit, had a body on it and was about to be ignited. Wood is stacked all around – burning goes on 24/7, about 70 bodies a day. Three tall, old buildings around the ghat, blackened by soot, are hospices where sick people who have no family and nowhere to go are fed and looked after...while they wait.

The bodies, wrapped in cloths and bound, are carried down on bamboo stretchers, through the warren of backstreets behind the ghat. They are immersed in the river before being laid on a fire. There is constant activity going on all around – relatives praying, ashes being raked and tipped into the river, new fires set up, people milling about, cows wandering down the steps, dogs chewing bones... There is no smell - just a lot of choking smoke - Tina kept her surgical mask on throughout. It was an extraordinary experience, but I found it strangely reassuring - that to a Hindu death is so much part of life, an exciting next step for them.