Hard work in the holy city

Sleeper train to Varanasi

Arriving in Delhi, Barn and I can’t believe how Western the city feels, relative to the other places we’ve visited in India. Road rules clearly still don’t exist here, but there’s slightly less tooting on the roads as we leave the airport. Furthermore, they’re roads which actually resemble real roads. This is a first. We ask about the 2010 Commonwealth Games and what we glean from our driver’s broken English is that the city was cleaned up in a huge way before the Games – a bonus for those living in Delhi.

We meet up with Harriet and Erin at the hotel and try not to share all the news of our past 10 days apart, as we have a 17-hour train ride to Varanasi the next day. When we get to the platform, Barn reminds me that we’re going to be spending longer on this train than we have in most of the hotel rooms we’ve stayed in so far – not a comforting thought.

As we board the train, a man pushes in front, separating me from the others. He’s stalling, looking into each cabin as I try to push past to get back to the group, and I realise his friend is right up behind me. I feel something touch my handbag, and quickly pull it closer to me before stopping at a seat and insisting they both pass. When I look again, I realise a 20cm hole has been sliced into my bag. Fortunately, the cut was made right where my sleeping bag liner and jersey were, so nothing was taken, apart from my naivety, perhaps.

The Ganges at dawn

The train passes as slowly as expected, and we arrive at Rahul Guest House on the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi at 5.15am. We have a much-needed coffee and board a boat at 6am to watch the sun rise over the Ganges. It’s a must-do experience, but not one I’d jump at repeating any time soon. We float through thick fog past the ghats where some bodies are being burnt and others are being tied with rocks before they’re released onto the water to sink.

The Ganges

There are boatloads of other tourists doing the same thing we are, and others with men selling tacky Varanasi souvenirs from them. It seems wrong for people to be capitalising on this situation, but where there’s a rupee to be made in India, you can guarantee somebody will be making it. Nearing the end of the journey, a Canadian on our boat comments that it’s interesting we haven’t seen a corpse yet. Less than 30 seconds later, we pass one floating face-up. I can’t look for long, but the corpse is still well formed and you can tell it’s a man. There are crows sitting on the man’s bloated stomach, and ceremonial paint still adorns his forehead. He even has his silver wristwatch on. It’s creepy, to say the least.

We walk the city in the afternoon, try a thali recommended in all the guide books, and navigate the intense traffic. After dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Ganges, we meet another lovely autorickshaw driver, Uttam, who we enlist to take us sightseeing the next day. On the way home, Uttam proudly shows us the sparkly Indian bangles he’s brought his wife, and we tell him he’s chosen the best ones. He smiles, stoked, and tells us that in India, it’s not common for men to buy their wives gifts. He tells us he’s 24, two years our junior, and asks Barn if he’s married yet. “Unfortunately not,” he says, “But I’ll be buying bangles soon enough,” Barn adds, laughing.

Clare arrives off a train from Delhi in the morning, and we begin the day as a foursome; this should be the start of “The Famous Five do Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh”, but Erin is struck down with an as yet unknown illness, so Pete, Harriet, Clare and I head off with Uttam while Erin rests up. He takes us first to the Ramnagar Fort and Museum, a 17th century fort and palace on the eastern banks of the Ganges. We wander through the slightly underwhelming museum and look at cases of weaponry – Indian swords with flint lock pistols, axes, daggers, some bejewelled swords, and a lot of empty cases that should be holding ‘ivory articles'. There are elephant tusks, and – bizarrely – a relatively modern Indian lounge suite behind glass. We see tiger heads, animal hides, a lion trap, and a once-beautiful ballroom with leadlight windows that’s sadly now in a state of disrepair. Pete reckons it would have been a great 21st venue in its heyday.

Harriet starts to go downhill, so we drop her back at the hotel for some R&R with Erin, while Clare, Pete and I continue on to Blue Lassi for “The best lassi in all of Varanasi” – an advertising slogan Clemenger’s would be proud of. This place has been talked up by everyone who’s ever visited the city, and it’s unfortunate Erin and Harriet aren’t with us to enjoy our first one as they were huge campaigners. We’ll have to come back tomorrow, we say. On the way there, Pete accidentally says “bang lassi” instead of mango lassi (Freudian slip?), and our driver Uttam launches into a big spiel about “bang lassis” – the drug-laced version of the milky drinks. Pete’s pleading, “No, I didn’t mean that! We do not want the drug version!” but Uttam presses on. “Bang lassi you can only buy one day of the week in Varanasi. It is very dangerous. The marijuana last four hours, but bang lassi lasts 12. It’s made with the baby leaves,” he says. “It have delayed reaction – you not feel it for one and half hours. Easy to have too much.”

He admits he’s tried it many times before – but he doesn’t do it these days, now that he’s married and has a 10-month old son. “The feeling is very nice, but you can only have little bit, no more. But it is not good; you drinking more and more of it and you become mad. Things are always running in your mind. Anything you think of – the spiritual matters, the sexual matters. You are always thinking, deeper and deeper, any matter,” he warns. “Not long ago, tourist come here and he have the bang lassi. He was in the street for six hours – six hours! – playing with dolls like a baby. More than 200 peoples were watching him in the street, and he not watch any of them, he just watch the doll.” 



Clare ready to tackle 'The best lassi in all of Varanasi'

We get to the lassi place and I opt for a banana and coffee flavoured one. Pete tries the Lonely Planet-recommended apple, and Clare a banana coconut. As we’re ordering, the owner says, “We have special lassi, magic lassi. We can get a lot of things here. We can add magic seeds.” Uhhh, no. Definitely no magic seeds, thank you very much. In her job at Telecom, Clare’s doing some work for Fonterra, so she films them churning the milky drinks, and asks about the ingredients. “Milk, cream, saffron, rose water, and pistachios,” they say. They tell us it’s buffalo milk, not cow, and when we leave, we quiz Uttam about the Indian dairy industry. He tells us buffalo milk is Rs 20 per little, whereas it’s Rs 40 for a litre of cow’s milk. He adds that the buffalo milk is stronger and you can add 300mL of water per litre to dilute it. Apparently they save the cow’s milk for ceremonial use – it’s one of the offerings to the Hindi gods. Temples are even washed in the stuff. “We have big shortage of cow’s milk when we have big religious ceremonies – this is 14 times a year.”

Uttam picks up his sister’s 10-year-old brother on the way, and we say hello and ask if he goes to school. He doesn’t. He sells postcards to make money for his family. He’s one of 11 children and there’s no one to pay for his education. Uttam tells us more about his own family – one brother and one sister, both married now. His father died when he was nine, so he’s been working since he was just 14 years old. First, it was “small jobs like chai shop,” he says. “I started driving auto in 2008, but I do one year learning in 2007. I work one year for no pay to learn.” Clare says that must have been hard, not earning any money for a whole year. Uttam replies in an unintentionally poignant manner: “In India, to get something you need to lose something.” We all nod and look down, silently and unanimously agreeing on the value of hard work.