Sitting at the crematorium, there's something about watching twelve bodies burn that makes you feel good.
I meditate on the sand as the sun comes up just before five am. My left leg goes numb because it’s riddled with damage. I open my eyes after twenty minutes and the sun looks like the moon behind the haze of life. Old men and women bathe in the water. The water looks warm. It has to be. A large Indian lady is wearing a white top and I can see her nipples through the wetness of it. Even in a spiritual place like this, on a fat elderly Indian woman, I find it hot. When the sun gets too harsh I walk home and have a hit of my pipe. My head floats me to bed and I listen to chakra healing music as I enter the dream realm, asleep or not, who knows?
The rest is one I forgot even existed. Like I haven’t really slept ever. When I wake up I'm energised and horny. I walk to ‘The Green Lassie’ which is a small shop on the corner of the street in the middle of the heat. They serve Bhang Lassis here; the locals drink it to aid their anxiety. It’s a lassie with spoonful’s of marijuana infused love.
“A Bhang Lassi please,” I said.
The man with a moustache and a smile standing in front of a fridge and plenty of pots and behind a cabinet of thick cream and cups made out of clay replies, “Medium or strong?”
I nod my head with a strong sense of courage.
“Strong,” I say.
I watch him make it and pour the mix into the clay cup.
“How much?”
“Drink it and then pay me.”
I sit and start getting through it. Thick clumps of cream with skin enter my mouth and feels like I should spit it out. But I get it down like the good little girl I am. I feel rushed because I want to be in my room when anything starts to happen. I take a deep breath and have a chat with myself, just stay calm, what can life give you that you can’t endure? That you can’t breathe through? And also, why are we worried? If we are going to use this brain for predictions then let’s start thinking of how good it could be!
“Alright mind,” I say, as I finish the clumps and thick taste of cream with no sugar.
“150,” says the man.
$3.
Then I start to walk home. Its 10am and already 40 degrees. The warmth is interesting to observe. It doesn’t feel as hot as you would assume. Yet you're standing or sitting doing nothing and sweat starts to run down your face. Your forearms start to sweat on the table. It is hotter than anywhere you have ever been but seems like only the body knows it. Then I think about the times at work, crawling through tin roofs in the middle of an Australian summer. Covered in dirt and insulation, on your skin and your lungs. This is easy. I walked to the top of my hotel (which is a closed café) and take my shirt off. Walk in circles like a prisoner. Waiting for something to happen. An Indian a hundred metres away sees me and gestures for me to get down because the sun is too hot. It annoys me… All I accept in this city and you can’t accept me. But his little voice grew to a big one in my head and it fuelled enough doubt to go back to my room. The air conditioner would turn on and off every fifteen minutes. I didn’t care. After an hour I felt the immense weight of my head. In case any panic found me, I got my laptop and wrote a title,
Notes from a bhang lassi
I never wrote anything beneath it. Until now. I watched a football game from 2015 and watched myself play. It was surreal. Watching someone care about things so much. Watching me, and it isn’t me. Feeling all of his fears again. All the fears that came true. All of them. And they were just as bad as you imagined. Now I watch, the one who got through them, watching me, win a game off his own boot. Then I fell asleep for a few hours. I didn’t do anything that night, just went for a long walk, very tired, muchas relaxed.
The following night with energy and vigour I walked to the crematorium. I had another bhang lassi but only medium this time. It made time go fast and thoughts deepen. I listened to music and walked along the trip that holds everything.
Sitting at the crematorium, there's something about watching twelve bodies burn that makes you feel good. As if the one who feels bad is watching his irrelevance. A man waddles my way, like a Hyena towards a lion that is eating.
“Hello sir.”
“I don’t have any money man, I'm sorry I just want to watch.”
“No, no sir, no money.”
Bullshit. They all say that, then they do what everyone does. They speak about karma. That they volunteer to work in the hospice for three hours a day. It is his job and his families honour to share his culture and help people learn about Hinduism and its practices. Then at the end they stare at you like a dog waiting for the hose to turn on. Guilt; the angels greatest whip, the devils greatest lure.
I insisted, “ok, (you can keep talking) but I don’t have any money on me.”
He told me how women aren’t allowed here anymore. As we overlook the thick metal caskets that hold the timber and the body wrapped in colours. Both sweating from the heat of the sun and the 3000-year-old fire that cremates the lucky ones. Women got banned by the government because a wife tried to jump on the fire with her husband. That is what I want my wife to be like too. So now, no girls allowed, except foreigners who walk between the fires and take photos of your burning son. It’s okay for them… The men aren’t allowed to cry. I think it’s a written rule. Children under ten don’t get burned because they’re seen as a flower. So they get tied and chucked straight into the river. Also, the sadh’s don’t get burnt. They’re the enlightened ones. There is a tribe, or group, whatever collective they go by, that are on the other side of the river. When the ties of the sadhs bodies break and they float to the surface, they grab them, crush them up and eat them.
“Why?” I asked,
“Because they want their good energy.”
“Is it hard not to cry?” I ask him.
“No. No, this is a celebration. This is an honour. A happy moment to release the soul from this life.”
He took me up the top. Top of what? I don’t know, the building! But the building sits behind the burning bodies. They all have their own little 3sq metered space. The bodies take three hours to burn. Then they throw what is left into the river. 150kg of timber to go with it and a different price range on the timber. Capitalism is a natural weed that grows everywhere. I can’t remember the prices, something like 100r a kilo. $2 a kilo. $300. But I can’t really remember. He took me where the brahmans get burnt. The high caste. Up there, fifty meters elevated from the rest. Less romantic beneath a roof. It looks like a scene from Lord of the Rings. There is no smell but of the known one of ash. They burn just the same, it’s all just the same. He told me I could take a photo, but I said no, it didn’t feel right. Now I follow this fat little man with teeth ruined from the tobacco rocks they chew. Again a hot and conspicuous scene. In front of me was a fire with enough glowing embers not to be worried it about going out.
“This fire is 3000 years old. This is the same flame as the very beginning. This is what they start every cremation with,” he points to a man dressed in all white, “that man there is from the family who started the fire. It passes on and they protect it.”
He got some of the ash and blessed my forehead with it. I guess that’s a good analogy. the soul is just the eternal flame, I'm a log to keep it going. I become the fire, I am the fire, but soon I'm ash.
He told me I could wish for anything to the fire. I closed my eyes and thought.
In the end I just said, “Thanks.”
He guilted me into giving a man who works at the crematorium 1500R to go towards the poor people who couldn’t afford timber but want to burn here anyway. I was grateful for that guilt, that was the angel’s whip. That man blessed me too. Not many blessings are free.
“Behind here it is legal to smoke hash and weed, do you want any?”
I was out but leaving in two days and took that as a sign to not have anymore, but this was a bigger sign so I said, “Yes.”
We walked through alley ways that smelt of piss and discomfort. The guy was trying to call someone but they wouldn’t answer. I tell him not to worry about it. Then we walk out the front, he gets a guy and they sit with me by the stairs. He shows a packet of weed, the weed looks dark and sad like a depressed African. I watched myself get ripped off. I paid 3500R for about a joint worth of weed. As I walked off I felt a little disgruntled. It’s not the money, it’s the principle! The man who said he didn’t want money looked at me with big sorry eyes. So I paid him too. This one interaction cost me a mere fortune. Good, let them have it. I walked home finding peace with that. Smoked the weed, did nothing but make my mouth dry. I had gotten stoned to oblivion for $3 and got a dry mouth for $70.
The next day I walked back to the crematorium. Watched people burn! Sat at the top where two cows stand with their skin looking like a bikies jacket. I meditated by the temple. It was glorious. The same man come back and now I was in no need for his knowledge. I gave him enough, I was polite, I am polite. Of course.
“How was the weed?” He asked,
“Shithouse.”
“Yes, weed is not good here.”
I could see his little consciousness in a knot and it made me happy he cared.
“Here, you can take this,” he said, handing me a small piece of hash.
“No, brother, it’s all good, I don’t have any money on me,” I said again, this time I actually didn’t.
“No, for free bro.”
So I took it and said thanks. He walked off. I sat relaxed as time went on without my eye. As I left to my comfy bed the the man walked up to me again.
“Do you have anything for me sir?” he asked.
“Like what?”
“Oh, just anything. For me?”
“Like what?”
“Money?”
“I told you bro, I haven’t got any money.”
“Oh ok.”
I walked off. That is the incredible tale of how an Australian foreigner went deep into the underbelly of Varanasi and walked out even.
