varanasi

there's cowshit everywhere so you have to watch where you step. through the stone maze of crumbling buildings and temples still standing little windows in the stone, men perched on stools and women weaving, sewing, veiled in all the colors of the rainbow, shy, but smiling. the water, they say comes up to the second story during the monsoon season, so the ground level has no carpets, no furnature, just a few tables and mats, things easily moved. the eternal fire still burns after 4000 years, and it is with this protected flame, at manikarnica that the bodies burn, right down the steps from the mishra guest house where i'm staying, where, in the morning, i wake to chanting and singing, and horns blowing, and bells. out my window the smoke i see is some family's grief, some child's tears, or sometimes no one at all to mourn, so the fire is quick and the location is over by the trash, so the boatmen can still walk on their path. they use the cheapest wood and burn the body as quickly as possible (one body burns in about 3 hours, a man tells me), so they can sweep up the debris, and quickly comb through the rubble searching for gold teeth and jewlery worth salvaging...as quickly as possible the workers sift through the smoldering ash and clear the way for the next burning to begin. the leper colony is also right next door and it looks like a scene from a zombie movie, hobbling, diseased outcasts wailing and wobbling, some without limbs, some with blackened faces, as if foaming, they stand watch, like gargoyals. the man at the burning ghat says it's good luck for the passing soul's future if animals pick at your bones, the man's chest and the woman's pelvis are always the last to burn, he tells me as he points to what i imagine is a chest cavity, broken and charred, not quite caved in. dogs sniffing. a man puts out his hand to shake mine, just some random man, red teeth, the smell of dust and bread... hands crackling dry and brittle, he starts rubbing my hand and then my arm and then my shoulder and neck, i get swept up and taken away, somewhere else, though i am still half here, on the steps of the ghat, above the river, whose presence is felt even in darkness. eyes closed, i sense her, her heart is beating, literally beating, the river, i swear has life. the part that stays is listening, being lulled by the birds and chit chat, footsteps and motor bike sounds in the distance, goats whining and hacking coughs and waves hitting boats and some street vendor frying dough in hot oil. sharp sizzles. the massage lasts at least an hour, i go limp and he leads me to the ground, i imagine people walking all around me, but i don't dare look, my eyes stay closed, lost in ecstacy. after he's finished i pay him several hundred ruppes and we say our namaste's and share a twinkling eyed smile. he holds my bills up to the sky like a blessing and kisses them before brushing the wrinkled paper to his forehead. i go back to walking... i'm drinking coke in a bottle, and laughing with the kids near me. in the shade, on a bench, just chilling. teaching them a handshake and poking at these two boys, both with torn shirts, dried snotty noses, and cracking feet, no shoes. i buy them both cokes and show them my family's photograph from home. they tell me about their family, how much they love their family, "most good family." and suddenly four more boys come over, all of them brothers, smiling, shaking my hand and jumping up and down like i'm doing some magic trick they've never seen, but all i'm doing is sitting there. i get them sodas too, they look as they're pouring it down their throats like it's some magic elixer, like it's pure golden nectar from the gods, a gift from on high. one of them tells the littlest of the brothers to run upstairs, his hand gesture says it all. and after a few moments he waves me in, to meet the parents, his face is beaming. we all climb the stairs dancing like bollywood stars, i boble my head a lot, and they love it. inside, they bring me chai and i spill it all over the floor. oops. luckily, we all laugh, and after a few moments of everyone scattering to find the proper cleaning tools, and the mother mopping me off with her dress as i say repeatedly, "no, no...please. it's okay." after all that, the house settles again, and the room goes back to normal. the father rolling some mixture of tobacco and calcium into a ball in his palm, slapping the mixture with his forefinger now and then, and then rolling it, pressing and rolling, like dough, working it into a glob so he can put it in front of his teeth and play with it for a few hours, under his tongue, sticking to his gums and tingling his lower lip. i watch him do this, it makes me make a funny face i think, i try to control it. and then i say goodbye. i bought a few tapes to play on my tape player and they were a hit. without knowing what i was buying, i purchased two very traditional devotional tapes, recordings from unknown artists expressing their unyeilding love for shiva. i play the tapes at night and light some incense. i read and after a while walk onto the balcony of the guest house, where the employees are smoking hash and playing cards. some of them know the songs, and sing along, laughing, slapping eachother's knees and pointing, like, "check out this guy, he's all right!" i find an unaccompanied hamock and fall asleep smiling in a cloud of smoke and laughter, flies buzzing and the holy ganga river sparkling back at the moon until dawn.