Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“Coming to India with yellow bike is much strangeness!” the small man yelled at me as I
walked along the Ganges. Not far from where we stood, there was an open fire, and within
it, the body of a recently deceased person. No, that was not a typo. A person. A dead person
being burned in the open air before their ashes were to be thrown into the Ganges. Hindus
believe that if you die and are thrown into the Ganges you will not need to be reincarnated.
A goal of all Hindus, I was told.
I thought our proximity to death would warm this stranger's heart, but apparently burn-
ing your dead in the open was natural in Varanasi, while riding a yellow motorbike was
“much strangeness.” It was my final rejection for the day. I had already been through many
others as I made my way to this holy town along the banks of the famous Ganges.
I sat down by the river. If Zen is pure mental and physical exhaustion, then I was the
living Buddha. I could barely remember my own name, let alone form a coherent thought.
All I could do was sit and stare at the river, the smoke, the strange and bewildering world I
had found myself in.
An older man walked past and then stopped, asking me what I was doing.
I didn't know how to respond. I was tired of asking for help only to be rejected.
“I don't know,” I finally replied, unable to say much more.
“One day you, too, will end up like this,” he shared, referring to the fires burning around
us. “Live inside this moment and do not lose this time.”
He walked away, quickly consumed by the crowds, but his words remained. Those
small moments—like the sunset on that Nebraskan farm or playing music with Finesse and
Tchale or having tea with my new friend in Turkey—they were immortal. The dead could
burn; life could be reborn; but none of it mattered, unless we were willing to live inside the
moment.
I stood up. Suddenly, India was not a great heaving beast, but a collection of small steps,
of endless stories, of magic amid the mayhem. It was my job to stay in the moment. I con-
tinued to walk along the Ganges and soon met Dilip, a young riverboat driver, who offered
to take me for a dip in the Ganges. Dilip was short and slim like many Indians, but his arms
were bigger than most, built up by his days on the river.
In Greek myth, Charon is the name of the riverboat driver who escorts dead souls across
the river Styx to Hades, the kingdom of the dead. I'm not saying Dilip was the Indian un-
derstudy for Charon, but as I boarded his boat on the murky Ganges, intending to swim in
it, I hoped he wouldn't be leading me to Hades anytime soon.
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