Geoff Dyer of The Observer visited the Indian city of Varanasi to observe life at the River Ganges. His trip resulted in the article Tales of the Riverbank in which he describes the intensity of the city: The busy bustling streets, the people, the animals, the traffic, the cacophony of horns, the competing bright colors, and the smells.
“You are bound, eventually, to come to the Ganges. After the stifling claustrophobia of the streets, one’s first sight of the mighty river and the sky stretching over the opposite bank, desert-dry, is like a glimpse of another, uninhabitable world.
A young boy with an old face tells me that if you die over there, on the eastern bank of the Ganges, you will be reborn as a donkey, an idea whose practical consequences have proved immensely beneficial. Fear of such an eventuality means that the far bank has never been settled. And so, as you emerge on to Dasaswamedh ghat, one of the many stairways leading down to the river, you are afforded what seems like a view, across a narrow ocean, of an empty continent. It is like arriving at the world’s first seaside resort. The sky is holiday blue. Banners flutter in the breeze. Oh, it is so lovely! But all of the wealth heaped on the senses is intensified by – and expressive of – the faith that has converged here for centuries. Belief is not an issue; it’s a fact. Even if you don’t understand what you are seeing, you cannot help breathe it in. Everyone articulates this in their own way. Mine is to say ‘Yes’, because as soon as I arrive I am possessed by an instinctive, affirming certainty: my life has been worthwhile (every tedious minute of it) because I am here, now.”
The Observer
Photos Jiun Ho