Dec 16 Varanasi

This morning I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and walked down to Assi Ghat to watch the sunrise over the Ganges. At sunrise is when most people, especially women, come down to the river to bathe and to perform pujas--prayer rituals.

As the sun rose, so did the noise along the bank. One man sitting on a platform was belting laughter so loud I could hear him from upstream long before I could see him. To raise his arms high and let out this laughter is part of his daily spiritual routine--an exercise in spreading joy and happiness.

This city intrigues me. People come to a city rotting in its own bile for enlightenment. The men's mouths are so stuffed with this chewing tobacco called paan that they can't speak but just drool on themselves. And the walls of the ghats serve as a public toilet that stretchs the entire length of the river's run through the city. The pilgrims lay their prayers and their plastic wastes on these waters simultaneously. As much as this city intrigues me, it fails to strike me as a holy city at any time other than sunrise. It's a wasteland freak show. But it's still one of the most fascinating places I've ever been.

The combination of filth and elegance in Varanasi somehow comes together in a homogenous concoction of humanity.