Varanasi: Part Uno

Disclaimer: the following entry is full of sarcasm and mockery but is in no means a reflection of a poor time in Varanasi – for I have nothing but perfectly wonderful memories from an intense time in one of India’s craziest cities.

Wow, what a corny way to start off. But that was the wonderful group I went with: the Lucky Seven, we are the dorkiest people our Lord Braham could have created. It was Brittany my roommate from Illinois who is the most awkward and most genuine person who can light up a room, Scott from Wisconsin with whom I apparently share a mind for we constantly have the same thought at the same moment, Nate from Wisconsin who is saturated with sarcasm and love, Breezie from Washington who continues to impress me with her spirit, courage and warmth; Hannah from Illinois who cracks us up with random side comments and goofy voices and Charlotte from New Jersey who with her honesty faces challenges head on in her path of growth, pushing me to do the same, then there’s that crazy loud girl from New York who might be bipolar, she pushed everyone to go regardless of the short time we could spend in the city and thanks Lord Vishnu for her friends’ patience and could not have planned a better visit to Varanasi.

After taking a full day to buy train tickets and book our hostel, we waited two days before we left for the Howrah Junction in Kolkata for our 8:30p train. Because it is overnight, we were in the sleeper trains which have three tiers of beds. We were generally near to each other and the train was mostly empty so all seven of us cuddled into three beds; sharing travel stories, talking about impressions of India and being goofy. As mentioned before, our group is really dynamic, and diverse but we all have the same sense of humor and fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants attitude that making traveling in groups the easiest. After chatting it up for a few hours, we headed to our respective beds to rest before our arrival in Varanasi. The train is 14.5 hours long. I woke up in the morning to a man spitting, no correction – hacking up phlegm from the seemingly endless pit of his stomach. This is the first pet peeve about India, the violent spitting that sometimes sounds like vomiting. The men do it constantly to clean out their system, but it spreads germs and diseases rapidly. I am not a fan. I digress – the rest of the Lucky Seven begin to wake up and sit together munching on almonds and pistachios, reading books. Nate, Charlotte and I look through our travel books to glance over Varanasi’s famous sites. Nate studied abroad in Thailand last semester and is an excellent backpacker. Charlotte, also well traveled, is an excellent planner, thoroughly during research on sites and customs of the cities we visit.

We arrive into Varanasi a few hours late, which the whole train ride it was pouring. Let me state that we have not seen a drop of rain since we stepped foot into India, so of course it has to rain on our one vacation we have our whole programme (which we shall argue and find more time… we’re not going down without a fight!) However, as soon as we stepped onto the train platform, it stopped. Praise Hanuman! Also, a man with Coke-bottle glasses approached us with a sign exclaiming “Nate – Shanti Hostel.” He was our rickshaw driver and my one regret on the trip is not snapping a photo of him. He looked straight out of a cartoon with glasses that resemble Milton from “Office Space.” We follow him through the crazy train stations and enter into what Varanasi is made of: mud. Or cow poo, they are indistinguishable in the rain. The seven of us cram into two motorized rickshaws and head into the city.

We all said at different times of the trip that this is what people think of when India is mentioned: crazy driving in on bicycles, man powered and motorized rickshaws, motorcycles along narrow streets full of cattle, goats and assorted farm animals; mud and fescues mixed to create a solute that will never come out of those jeans, the smell of a famous and delicious Indian spice one moment then the smell of urine from a man pissing on the wall in next second. You hear shouts in intelligible languages, cars honking, motors attempting to start, the chopping of fruit and wood. Colours which Crayola could not name surround you in the form of sarees, jewelry, shawls, buildings, signs, and anything that you can absorb in your sight. In the distance over the heavy smell of rain, we could taste the water from the Ganges – which probably is not the healthiest thing in the world. I am squished between Nate and Brittany in a random man’s rickshaw that I have to hold onto the roof to keep myself from falling out – and just then I catch my reflection in his rearview mirror. My hair is short and sticking out in odd bits but gladly out of my face so as not to impair my view. I am wearing a scarf I bought in Paris that some colours match the baby blue in my eyes, which are wide open and smiling from the insane escapade in front of me. And in this intense moment, I all-encompassingly absorb that I am in Varanasi and that life should be fully embraced and cherished, and I am proud of myself for many decisions I’ve made to engulf myself in this gorgeous world. It is not some perfect show that needs to be reviewed, proven on a stage – but a voyage that cannot we have no control over except to dive in, embrace it and love it. But really, that’s the only control we need, isn’t it?

More to come...