Death, Varanasi

There is no beauty in death. Ugly, decaying, unholy. Death is death alone. 

Finally emerging from the winding labyrinth of Varanasi side streets we arrive at our little hotel, Sita Guest House, right along the Ganges River. We dump our bulging backbacks in our rooms and venture up the narrow staircase to the rooftop, wiping sweat from our foreheads and dirt from our leggings. The rooftop looks out on the garbage filled river, the holy river of India. Our eyes feast on the colors below, the pilgrims and the boats, the cows and the monkeys. And then we see him. Red plaid shirt, wide torso. Face down in thou holiest of rivers, floating along. Dead. Z is the last one on the roof and joins us at the balcony. He follows our eyes to the floating man and throws his hands to his head, recoiling in disgust. Swearing and stammering, he backs away from the balcony but then joins us once more. Staring out in silence at the man who once was.

Without warning our tour guide navigates us to the Burning Ghats. We follow him down a small alley and then there it is directly in front of us. Five burnings are happening at once. Young men walk back and forth bringing more wood for the fires. Back and forth, back and forth with more wood. A large box is opened and a dead man lies inside. Waiting to be burnt, crisped, singed, destroyed, sent up to the heavens? He wears a traditional outfit and there are flowers on his chest. His face is an inhuman gray. Our tour guide walks over to read from where this man has come, Bangalore. An older woman, presumably his wife, makes her way across the muddy hills and around the piles of garbage and shit and kneels down beside this man from Bangalore. And we watch. Stare as she rests her head against his, shaking from the weight of mourning. More wood back and forth. Six old men sit on a wooden bench and casually watch the happenings. Others just stand and stare like us. Mr. Bangalore is lifted up and placed on a freshly laid pile of wood. I bite my tongue to keep from vomiting and push my way back up through the small alley. 

Farther down the road are emaciated cows digging through the piles of trash, scavenging for anything to eat. Ribs protruding and eyes cast down, waiting to die. Holy cow, you do not look so holy anymore. On the side of the street lies a dead dog, eyes gauged out by other hungry creatures.

Tunnel visioned and heart racing. Click goes the lighter. 

Here in Varanasi death is everywhere. It bites at you, gnawing your ankles and making its way up deep into your once sheltered, but thankfully still beating, heart. 

In the West the sick are separated from the healthy, the dead far from the living. Death is hidden in deep wooden caskets, buried far beneath the earth, disguised in stage makeup, lost in the locked incinerator, warded off with penicillin, Botox, and carefully manicured self-delusions. 

But here, life and death are intertwined, both real and unflinchingly unforgiving. And I am terrified of this death. I can handle the death that is glorified, the one about which songs are composed and stories retold. But this death is different. It is in your face and it reeks. I am forced to white knuckle grab the thick flesh of my upper arm to prove to myself I am still alive among all that is not. Desperately feeling for the familiar warmth of life, digging nails deep to keep back the vomit. 

The body will rot, decay, it will mold. Bugs will crawl through and after a while there will be more dirt than body. Our bodies will inevitably fail us. So I keep telling myself that death lets us transcend our body's limitations. That dogs will finally see in color and humans understand that which bewilders us. 

But there is no beauty in death.