I visited Varanasi in 2010, it’s truly a special city. Wandering the endless twisting alleyways, occasionally having to retrace your steps because a cow is blocking the way, getting thoroughly disoriented by the constant bends and turns, and discovering the myriad of ghats along the riverside is a unique experience.
If you go there it’s also worth paying a boatman to row you to the opposite bank, which is a very different place to the center of Varanasi.
If you want to see a similar but also very different settlement on the Ganges, Rishikesh is also amazing, I liked it more than Varanasi. There’s more access to nature and it has a comparable spiritual heartbeat. The Beatles wrote the White Album in an ashram (now deserted and half reclaimed by jungle) just on the outskirts. Shiva watches the mighty, unpredictable river that becomes calm and docile by the time it reaches Varanasi.
I know some people from Erbil that run a phone shop up the road. Continuous human settlement there apparently dates back at least 5000BC, becoming urbanised sometime before 2300BC.
One interesting thing in Varanasi-also known as Benaras- is that it houses many Aghoris-a small group of shiva sadhus- who are known to eat burning corpses. They also cover themselves with the ashes of the burnt corpses.
I'm curious about why do they persist in doing so. Obviously development of psychological ability to do things like this without any inner disturbance is a serious step in weakening ego conditioning but once it actually stops being a big deal for you there seems to be little sense in keeping on.
We visited Varanasi when I was around 10 with my family. The Ganges was flooded (some structures were underwater) and there were crocs aplenty. The shopkeepers warned us. My dad insisted we rent a boat so we could go to this holy spot where 3 rivers merge so we could take a dip. Fast forward 10 minutes and there's 4 of us in the boat with a boatman stuck in some kind of swirling water and the boat spinning round and round. The boatman asked if we knew swimming (none of us did). I look about and remember seeing a crocodile (or at least a very threatening looking floating log) some 200 feet away. The guy finally got control of the boat and we escaped unharmed. Fun times...
Damn, that's... phrases like "searing injustice" don't adequately convey the gravity of it.
I can't imagine living in such a situation. One day, you're a fine and valued member of society. And then your (often much older) husband dies, and it is all gone. You have nothing, and you are worth nothing to the rest of society, because you aren't even allowed to earn anything.
Wild place. By far my favorite city in India and I've travelled pretty widely there. If you're in town and partake, make your way to Blue Lassie for a "special" one, then make sure to get somewhere you feel comfortable before it kicks in.
Maybe the exact story maybe a similar story. Death is a constant : every year millions of people are dying and a lot of people die there (in Varanasi). It would be an obvious claim to fame for the city if marketed right, and there is no better marketing than moksha / salvation, at least for the old and/or the religious.
And imagine the life of priests (pundits) there. Some of them are in this business from the time they are young, then all through their life. Some funeral directors in US may see less people in a year than they may see in a week. Just amazing. Sorry to have just gone on...
A while back I tried to figure out how many people die every year. I didn't find a number then, but figured it was on the order of 50-100 million people. Searching just now, the number is probably around 56 million people, meaning approximately 153,000 people die on Planet Earth every day.
In America we have an odd relationship with the inevitable. Sometimes people get a terminal diagnosis, and sometimes they fight it. Two of my former passengers (I have a few I stay in touch with) were recently witnesses to some rather terrible death experiences related to cancer. One was the passenger's daughter-in-law's mother (breast cancer -> metastatic cancer), the other was the passenger's mother (uterine cancer -> metastatic cancer). I drove the one passenger's mother to her first cancer surgery, 4 years ago. She was a fighter until the very end, and only spent a few days on hospice care.
My mom's 95 year old friend has been waiting to die for a few years -- she'd had a stroke 7 years ago, and can't speak coherently. Mom and the other caretaker told the woman's doctors that the 95 year old has absolutely no desire to prolong her suffering, but the doctors kept treating her like an 85-year-old with plenty of life ahead of her. Patients are worth more that way, I think.
Commenting on the 95 year old's predicament, my brother said sometimes it's best if one's ticker just stops ticking, and not trying too hard to keep it going (with stents and pacemakers and the like).
We kind of let our 86-year old grand-mother die this spring. I guess we could of had prolonged her suffering had we insisted on hospitalizing her once she decided to stop eating (she had been more or less bed-ridden by almost an year by that point), but we decided that it was best for her to pass in her own bed, in her own house, outside of hospitals of which she was very frightened and where she had last spent the night more than 60 years ago, when my dad had been born. We took the right decision.
Being diagnosed with kidney disease and now on dialysis, I had to think quite a bit about how my life will end. Both my spouse and I had a talk and filled a health care declaration so doctors would know what we want at the end.
My father passed away earlier this year. Not that old but for the last 3 years of his life, he was unable to get up (body weakened by diabetes and a round of cancer), unable to see (almost 95% blind), and for the last 7 months unable to even speak. I do not live with the family so did not interfere but in my mind the question always was "what is the purpose of living at this point" whereas in the minds of close family and doctors: how else can we prolong life! To what purpose, I could never figure out. Whether we call them death panels or whatever is the current demagoguery term, I think we need to discuss them more because I definitely would not want to linger like that.
My grand grandfather on father's line, before he died at 98, made an impression "if he will not die from age, he will die from boredom." One day in 1996, he went for a walk on his own, and collapsed on the street.
He survived Qing, Khivan khanate, Russian empire, commies, many of his children, and two of his wives, one of whom was 15 years younger than him. Nothing of modern era ever delighted him. I think, for like 30 years, he sat and waited for his days to end.
Boredom frightens me as much as death, if not more
[+] [-] davedx|6 years ago|reply
If you go there it’s also worth paying a boatman to row you to the opposite bank, which is a very different place to the center of Varanasi.
If you want to see a similar but also very different settlement on the Ganges, Rishikesh is also amazing, I liked it more than Varanasi. There’s more access to nature and it has a comparable spiritual heartbeat. The Beatles wrote the White Album in an ashram (now deserted and half reclaimed by jungle) just on the outskirts. Shiva watches the mighty, unpredictable river that becomes calm and docile by the time it reaches Varanasi.
[+] [-] thwaway31232|6 years ago|reply
Just a heads-up - some of the buildings that make these twisting alleyways are being torn down to make larger walkway towards the Kashi-Vishwanatha.
https://thewire.in/politics/kashi-vishwanath-corridor-up-bjp
[+] [-] kranner|6 years ago|reply
https://www.firstpost.com/india/varanasi-locals-unhappy-with...
[+] [-] duxup|6 years ago|reply
I don't understand how people can do that to family.
[+] [-] geodel|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Salvation
[+] [-] swamy_g|6 years ago|reply
A look at daily life in the city of Benares (another name of Varanasi), India, one of the most religious places in the country.
It's streaming free on Prime (https://smile.amazon.com/Forest-Bliss-Robert-Gardner/dp/B01M...)
[+] [-] bankim|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bobosha|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inflatableDodo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gen_greyface|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qwerty456127|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] univalent|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shubham_sinha|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 9nGQluzmnq3M|6 years ago|reply
https://womennewsnetwork.net/2007/11/05/nothing-to-go-back-t...
[+] [-] ansible|6 years ago|reply
I can't imagine living in such a situation. One day, you're a fine and valued member of society. And then your (often much older) husband dies, and it is all gone. You have nothing, and you are worth nothing to the rest of society, because you aren't even allowed to earn anything.
[+] [-] weeksie|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kranner|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codeduck|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] totaldude87|6 years ago|reply
https://www.india.com/buzz/mukti-bhavan-the-hotel-where-peop...
https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/moksha-bhavan-the-place-whe...
https://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/varanasi-india-d...
[+] [-] kshacker|6 years ago|reply
And imagine the life of priests (pundits) there. Some of them are in this business from the time they are young, then all through their life. Some funeral directors in US may see less people in a year than they may see in a week. Just amazing. Sorry to have just gone on...
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] taxicabjesus|6 years ago|reply
In America we have an odd relationship with the inevitable. Sometimes people get a terminal diagnosis, and sometimes they fight it. Two of my former passengers (I have a few I stay in touch with) were recently witnesses to some rather terrible death experiences related to cancer. One was the passenger's daughter-in-law's mother (breast cancer -> metastatic cancer), the other was the passenger's mother (uterine cancer -> metastatic cancer). I drove the one passenger's mother to her first cancer surgery, 4 years ago. She was a fighter until the very end, and only spent a few days on hospice care.
My mom's 95 year old friend has been waiting to die for a few years -- she'd had a stroke 7 years ago, and can't speak coherently. Mom and the other caretaker told the woman's doctors that the 95 year old has absolutely no desire to prolong her suffering, but the doctors kept treating her like an 85-year-old with plenty of life ahead of her. Patients are worth more that way, I think.
Commenting on the 95 year old's predicament, my brother said sometimes it's best if one's ticker just stops ticking, and not trying too hard to keep it going (with stents and pacemakers and the like).
(minor edits)
[+] [-] paganel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pkaye|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kshacker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] C1sc0cat|6 years ago|reply
When you got woken up at night by the nurses feeding him via a nasal tube was a bit grim.
[+] [-] baybal2|6 years ago|reply
He survived Qing, Khivan khanate, Russian empire, commies, many of his children, and two of his wives, one of whom was 15 years younger than him. Nothing of modern era ever delighted him. I think, for like 30 years, he sat and waited for his days to end.
Boredom frightens me as much as death, if not more
[+] [-] inflatableDodo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eagletusk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitwize|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drchewbacca|6 years ago|reply
I keep trying to tell people Woking is the Vienna of the South East.
[+] [-] C1sc0cat|6 years ago|reply
All those Middle aged tennis fans and delegates really lower the age profile :-)
[+] [-] Jonnax|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spiralcirc|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kaushikt|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] superpowerby|6 years ago|reply
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