Bodies burning on beds of fire lit at the edge of the Ganga, people bathing drinking praying washing, beating dirt from their clothes on wet stones, drying the clothes on sun-hot stairs, and women with newly-shaved heads and naked arms and anxious eyes shouting into the golden doors of shrines guarded by unsmiling uniformed men holding long guns in the heat and cows, cows in every sliver-thin alley, swallowing plastic bags and banana peels, and a man with fingerless stumps on the ends of two arms leaning on the wall, next to a silk seller sipping chai in a pillow-floored shop unravelling scarves, and is that a dead monkey sprawled sideways on the street? (String of holy flowers strung around its neck?) Packs of men carry bodies cloaked in orange cloth (always orange) on wooden stretchers, bodies of their mother or brother or sister or son, lifting them high above the rickshaws and cigarettes, the spicy fried potato stalls and honking motorcycles, the tourists and goats and barefoot fly-swarmed kids, above the constant throb to the river where bells are ringing on the ghats, and pilgrims are singing and candles glow like rubies on the water and a hundred rowboats are moored and the Brahmin priests are spinning circles of fire, the massage men and the boys selling stamps, and the holy bearded man with red holy powder is smiling, rubbing dye into your damp forehead, incense smoke blooming up into the night heat as silver bowls shake along a staircase, their tin skins begging for rupees to fall for the old and the hungry and the waiting.

*Click on an image to view gallery in full-size
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A holy man stopped us to apply the red powder to our foreheads
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Brahmins performing with fire
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This man was following us around for awhile
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Watching these women gave me such a stong sense of how important Puja is for them, and how lucky I was to witness it
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More people waiting for Puja to begin
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The Brahmin priests would soon perform a ceremony here using fire
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Female pilgrims awaiting Puja–the nightly prayer service at the Ghats
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Hanging out at the Ghats
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Bathing and praying in the Ganges
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Morning meditation?
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Morning scene along the Ghats
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Our boat drivers for an early-morning row along the Ganges
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Garbage along the alleys
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Tree in one of the Old-City alleys
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I guess the cow wanted to put in her lunch order too
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More strays on the street
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Puppy and…wall shrine?
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Back in the alleys. Small boy, stray puppy.
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These poles are used by boat rowers, for pushing against the river floor
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Girls on Ahilyabi Ghat
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Street barber
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Beginning of our walk along the ghats–the banks of the Ganges River
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Huge piles of wood are ready to be bought by the families of the deceased. Hindus believe that by putting the ashes of the dead into the Ganges, their soul will attain Moksha–release from the cycle of death and re-birth.
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Wood used at the burning ghat
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Bathroom stall near the burning ghat
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Sign in Varansi’s old city, where we stayed four days. It’s made up of a maze of narrow alleyways.
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