India

Sunday 10/4/2009 - Sunrise on the Ganges in Varanasi, Temples of Khajuraho

We woke up at 4:00 am in preparation to see sunrise on the Ganges. Craig had had difficulty sleeping (probably just due to jet lag) and had only really managed to sleep well from 3:30 – 4:00. We got dressed and met Mukul and Pintu the driver at 5:15. The streets were much emptier at this time of day than they had been the previous evening. We passed roadside shrines and pilgrims on foot making their way to the Ganges. Streetlights illuminated street food vendors serving early morning breakfast to their clients. Unlike last night, Pintu was able to drive us straight through to Dashashwamedh Ghat.

The ghats (cement steps leading down to the water level of the Ganges River) looked surreal in the pre-dawn light. Between jet lag, long days, and constant moving around, we found it almost overwhelming. There was so much to see, and as we followed Mukul it all seemed like it was slowly coming into focus. We passed two pink pillars on the ghat which were decorated with larger than life paintings of Hindu divinities.

Mukul led us to a Brahmin priest who was sitting on a platform under a parasol on the ghat. The Brahmin made red and yellow tikas on our foreheads with colored paste. We cupped our hands together and he placed some plant stems and a red painted coconut on our outstretched palms and flicked us with water infused with flower petals. All the while, he was chanting a blessing. Mukul told him in Hindi about our friend Richa who was born and raised in Varanasi, and the Brahmin said a blessing for us, our parents, and Richa to have long life and good health. This was especially meaningful to me as my mother had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer.

There were interesting things to see in every direction. The faithful washed in the Ganges, swam in its waters, and even drank from it. Men bathed and swam shirtless, while women wore saris. Girls and boys sold offerings of flowers and candles to set adrift. Debris floated along the edge of the river. We could tell that the water level of the Ganges was low. There were some steps and parts of buildings which were discolored, as though they are normally submerged.

Mukul then hired a boatman, and we got into his boat. There was a board in the rear which the boatman removed to make a place for him to sit. He rowed us south down the Ganges. On the river looking back, the ghats were a hive of activity.

We watched as pilgrims bathed, pouring the murky gray river water over themselves. We saw processions of pilgrims carrying tridents. The sun started to rise to our left – a bright red orb breaching the horizon. It was beautiful. The air was full of the chiming of cymbals and gongs. It all had a timelessness about it (assuming you block out the mobile phone advertisements and such). I had seen these ghats and the buildings lining them on television many times before, but actually floating by them on the river was surreal. The buildings took on the orange glow of the dawn.

People were swimming. Boats pulled up to us to try to sell us souvenirs. One enterprising boatman showed us little metal vials which screw shut and demonstrated that we could fill it with water from the Ganges and take it home. (I smiled thinking what the TSA's reaction would be like if we tried to take a vial full of Ganges water into the USA. Even if it was less than three ounces.) Instead, Mukul thoughtfully bought us a packet of postcards depicting some things that you are not supposed to take photos of yourself (the cremation ghats, naked sadhus, etc.) We always try our best to respect local customs when it comes to photographing things.

We passed a building painted with red and white vertical stripes. Along its roof were colorful Hindu religious tableaux. We saw some effigies made of straw which had been decorated with stucco and placed into the river on prior days. Now the headless straw body of a goddess was naked on the ghats. A sadhu covered in ash was doing an offering. Orange flags were flying on the ghats.

We passed a shrine dedicated to protecting worshipers from smallpox. There were many people worshiping inside. People were beating their laundry onto stones at the side of the river, and Mukul told us an amusing (if somewhat pathetic!) story of a westerner who observed this long ago and reported that locals were “trying to break stones with wet linen”. White bed sheets were spread out to dry on a sloped area where there were no steps.

We saw the modern smokestacks from the new electric crematorium next to the traditional southern cremation ghat. Traditional cremation is an environmental problem as it requires more wood than is sustainable to burn the bodies. The government is trying to get people to use the crematorium instead, but people are resistant. They are afraid to deviate from tradition with their relatives' souls at stake. It is a very complex problem with deep rooted personal significance to Hindus. If every Hindu in India were to follow through and be burned and dumped into the Ganges, it would have a huge environmental impact. It would be a problem of a scale that we aren't even used to thinking about.

We saw stacks of firewood at this southern cremation ghat. Then the boatman turned the boat around and we headed north back to where we had started. Life unfolded in a series of vignettes around us. We saw a building which appeared to be a round observatory. Mukul pointed out a house decorated with tigers which had belonged to the lighter of the funeral pyre. We passed a representation of Mother Ganges riding a crocodile. A family shaved their baby's head and dipped it into the water. A man balanced atop a railing many stories up in a lotus position with his hands palms together above his head. We saw some cows relaxing on the ghats. A young Asian man was submerged in the water and his girlfriend giggled while taking photos of him from safely on shore. You could tell that there was no way that she was going in that water.

We passed our startingpoint and continued on toward the main cremation ghat, where a body under a sheet was being prepared for cremation. Family members were praying near the body. We didn't photograph this ghat out of respect, and in fact felt a little awkward even looking at the proceedings. We saw funeral pyres and piles of firewood. The stone of the buildings was blackened from years of smoke and soot from a constant stream of funeral pyres.

Our boatman dropped us off back where we had started (Dashashwamedh Ghat). We stepped out of the boat and climbed the ghat steps. Wow, what an intense experience that boat ride had been. But we didn't have a chance to slow down and process it; Varanasi kept coming at us at a frenetic yet laid-back pace. We followed Mukul down a gali (twisted alleyway of the Old City). There were few tourists here and many locals. We were now part of the throng, and the relative privacy of our boat was fleeting. We passed a silver shrine to Ganesh. Some shops and bakeries on these streets were open. Others had metal shutters drawn tight. Swarms of people were moving in every direction. It was strange to think that this had been Richa's neighborhood when she was growing up, and that she was probably known to the shopkeepers we passed. What a small world.

Mukul led us toward the Shri Kashi Vishwanath temple, a temple which honors a particular manifestation of Shiva. It was built in the 18th century, and is a mandatory stop for any pilgrim coming to Varanasi. Only Hindus are allowed inside the temple, so we kept our distance, but were still able to see all of the activity in these narrow labyrinthine streets. Mukul stopped at a stall and purchased some blessed sugar and colored string for us to bring back to Richa in the USA. People were selling garlands of bright marigolds. We walked back to the car, with Mukul making a quick stop to purchase some ammonite to send to his cousin who analyzes fossils in a laboratory in Europe.

Then we got back into the car and Pintu drove us to Banaras Hindu University, Richa’s alma mater. We drove around the shady, tree-lined campus.There were signs around the campus warning about “ragging” being illegal. We were unfamiliar with the term and asked Mukul, who described it as similar to hazing. This made sense, as we know the expression of "ragging on" somebody (playing the dozens). We passed a statue of the founder of the university, and Mukul told us an amusing story about him. The founder, Madan Mohan Malaviya, had asked a Muslim Nawab for a donation toward the founding of the university. When the Nawab learned that it would be called Banaras Hindu University, he denied the request and actually threw his shoe at the founder. The shrewd founder took the shoe (which was worn and unbecoming of a Nawab) and thanked the Nawab for his “donation”, saying that he would auction it off to get money for the school. The Nawab was embarrassed to have his tattered shoe go on the auction block, so he bought it back from the founder. This is typical of Indian stories – they always seem to involve cleverness like this.

As we drove back to the hotel, we saw people eating breakfast at roadside stalls. Their food was served on plates made of leaves. When they were through eating, they discarded the leaves on the ground. At first it seemed like they were just making a mess, but soon cows wandered over and started to eat the leaves. The leaves served two purposes - disposable plates for the people and food for the cows. It is actually very sustainable.

We got back to the hotel and enjoyed their expansive breakfast buffet – fresh sweet lime juice, tangy fruit yogurt and cereal, uttapan (rice flour pancakes), poori (crispy airy pancakes), bhaji (potatoes and peas, with spices), fresh pineapple, cheese, home fries, and coffee. It was a very yummy breakfast.

We went back up to our room to relax and pack up from 9 – 10:30. We realized that Mukul had forgotten his ammonite at the breakfast table, so we gave him a call to remind him. Luckily it was still on the table when he ran downstairs to recover it.

At 10:30, we met Mukul in the lobby, along with the greeter who had met us at the airport yesterday. They had found out that today’s flight was a bit delayed, so we sat in the lobby, perusing the marriage classifieds in the newspaper. The ads stated the caste of the person, and would say "caste no bar" if they were open to a match outside of their own caste. Ads were often placed by parents seeking a match for their child. We chuckled at ads which sought a "homely" woman, obviously the word has a different connotation there (in the U.S. we would use the word "domestic", and never use the word "homely").

After a while, we left for the airport. We learned that our flight was delayed until 1 o'clock. We found seats along the wall in the small, old airport in front of the air conditioner and waited until our flight was called. It was hot and I felt like I had been sweaty since I arrived in this country. And this is their cool season! We were thankful to be directly in the path of the air conditioner's cool breeze, which otherwise stood no chance against the hot humid air. At that point we were allowed into the departure lounge.

At 12:45 they called us and we went through security (once again we had to tag all of our hand-luggage and have the tags stamped to prove that they had been inspected.) We waited in the departure lounge until it was time to board our Jet Airways flight. Our flight took off at 1:30. We were served “fresca lime water”, a small fresh bottle of lemonade which was only good until 48 hours after packaging. Then they gave us half of a cheese sandwich with no crust. It was a nice snack, especially since the flight to Khajuraho was only 30 minutes long. As we came in for a landing, we flew over both the western and eastern temple complexes. We hadn't known what to expect to see at Khajuraho, but as we passed over these two clusters of temples, we knew they must be the main attraction. We landed as it started to downpour. This was our fourth flight in as many days, and we were happy that this would be our last airport for a while.

The driver pulled our car right up to the airport exit to try to shield us from the sheets of rain that were falling. We got into our car and drove the short distance (about half a mile) down wide tree-lined streets to the Ramada Khajuraho. The hotel was very impressive, with chandeliers and a fountain in the lobby. Everything was made of white marble. Because of its proximity to the airport, the hotel could only be two stories tall, which meant that it had several sprawling wings, with a gorgeous marble spiral staircase in each. We checked in at 2:30 and they gave us glasses of orange drink as we filled out our arrival paperwork.

We went up to our second story room and got settled, then joined Mukul a few minutes later in the lobby to meet our local guide, Ashwani. We drove to the western temple complex, stopping along the way for Mukul to hop out and buy a couple of umbrellas.

When we first arrived at the complex, it was still raining, and the tourists (mostly Indian) were huddling in the doorways of the temples to keep dry. We had our new umbrellas, one of which didn't really stay open. We joked that you just can't get qulaity $1 umbrellas any more. Mukul took the broken umbrella as we followed Ashwani around the site. Soon it stopped raining altogether.

The western temples are of Hindu origin and date back to 1000 CE. They were built by the Chandela Rajput dynasty, from sandstone gathered 45 km away from the site. The local stone is granite, and the foundations of all of the temples were made of granite as well. 22 of an original 85 temples survive today. The tallest (Kandariya Mahadev) is 116 feet tall. The pinnacles (or sikharas) of the temples are lotus-shaped. As we drew closer to the temples, we noticed that there were hundreds if not thousands of intricately detailed carvings in parallel horizontal bands across the temple walls.

Every inch of the exterior of the temples was adorned with these sandstone images of humans engaged in daily life activities (women putting on make-up, decorating their feet with henna, men writing love letters, etc.) Women were represented as a “three-bend-figure”. The voluptuous female form was shaped like an S, and three artists worked on each figure, one on the top bend, one on the middle, and one on the bottom. There were also images of gods and goddesses. We recognized one carving as Ganesh due to his elephant head. Animals such as horses, elephants, and camels were also depicted.

As we looked closer at the carving, we did a double-take as we noticed some very sexually explicit erotic carvings. These were three dimensional carvings of the teachings of the kama sutra. These depicted both "traditional" sexual encounters as well as more risque imagery of oral sex, orgies, and even bestiality. No matter how serious and scholarly we tried to be when looking at these sculptures, we couldn't overcome our inner gradeschool kid and devolved into awkward embarrassed giggles. Ashwani made a joke about the fact that all of these things have been around for at least 1000 years, and anyone who thinks they're trying out something new is mistaken.

It was as if each artisan had to make each sandstone piece as ornate as possible. Although some weathering had taken place, the carvings looked to be in extremely good shape seeing as they had been exposed to the elements for 1000 years. The detail work is amazingly fine.

Only one temple in the complex is still active (signified by a red flag flying over it). This is because any temples containing broken statuary can no longer be used. The single functioning temple is called Matangesvara. The temples have all undergone restoration procedures, but once UNESCO got involved with preserving the site, they didn't want any new carvings to be made as part of the restoration. They were afraid that new carvings would be confused with the thousand-year-old ones, and that it would undermine the authenticity of the site. So it is easy to tell the replaced/restored sandstone blocks from the originals, because they are smooth rather than carved, the only undecorated portions of the temples. It is a shame in some ways, but it is a double-edged sword. Of course the temples look better when the carvings are replaced, but it does make you wonder how much of what you are seeing is the original 1000-year-old work done with primitive tools as opposed to something created in the modern era by restoration experts.

One of the temples had a shrine inside that contained a statue of a goddess. It was positioned so that natural light came through the temple door, reflected on the shiny stone floor, and illuminated the statue, even in this cloudy weather. And the statue had a halo which could be backlit by a candle, as a man demonstrated for us. The temple had excellent cross-ventilation courtesy of window holes in the walls. There were many carviungs within the interior of the temple, many of which had parts that had been polished smooth by people rubbing them.

We saw a carving of Vishnu in the act of killing a demon. It was foretold by Lord Brahma that the demon Hiranyakasipu would not be killed by man nor beast, neither indoors nor outdoors, neither in daytime nor nighttime, neither on the earth nor in space. So Vishnu transformed into his half-man half-lion form (known as Narasimha) to be neither man nor beast, held the demon on his lap (neither on the earth nor in space) and killed him by plunging his fingernails into his belly in a doorway (neither indoors nor outdoors) at sunset (neither daytime nor nighttime). Yet another example of a story which celebrates Indian ingenuity and cleverness. This was our introduction to a popular motif that Mukul told us we would be seeing again on our travels through India.

By this point the rain had completely finished; it was no longer even sprinkling. The grounds of the temple complex were very lush, green, and well-manicured, and there were an abundance of purple flowers. An Indian father had wanted his son and daughter to get their photo taken with us. The daughter looked absolutely mortified and embarrassed by his request, but we were happy to comply. We then asked Mukul to take a photo of us together as well. The family also had a little toddler who was about to come over to us but got scared by the big white people at the last minute.

After Ashwani had shown us the temples and explained the site to us, we had time to walk around on our own until 5 o’clock. At first this seemed like a lot of time. We had already seen a good deal of the site, so we continued wandering around by ourselves. We saw very lethargic langur monkeys lounging on the temple balconies. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing monkeys in the wild like this. We walked around the back of the tallest temple, Kandariya Mahadev, and noticed a lightning rod tucked into one of the corners. We wondered if the temple had ever been struck.

As we were admiring the temples and the green lawns of the complex, we noticed a group of girls eyeing us and giggling. Two of them tried to take a surreptitious photo of us, but Craig caught them in the act and we posed for them to take a proper picture. They were embarrassed and their group of friends giggled as they took our photo, and as we took a photo of the two of them. As we walked away we said goodbye and waved to them all and they all giggled and waved back. There weren't many other non-Indian tourists around on this day, so we had caused a big stir.

Before we knew it, it was 5 o'clock and we rushed back to meet Mukul and Ashwani. We realized that we had missed one particular temple, and held up a hand signal for 5 more minutes as we raced by Mukul. In the Varaha temple, there was a statue of Vishnu's incarnation as a large boar. It was carved from a single 2-tonne piece of rock. It had human figures carved all over its body. I ran over to snap a couple of quick photos, and we apologized as we arrived at the car a couple minutes late.

After that we drove across the small town to the eastern temple group. These are Jain temples, some of which are modern and some of which are 1000 years old. A class of students were sitting on the ground, drawing and painting images of the figures carved on the temples. They looked at us and giggled as we walked around looking at the temples. Restoration work was being done here, and there was some staging set up around some of the temples. We passed a pair of elephant statues which had the trunks broken off.

As we looked at the art students' drawings, we thought about the whole macro/micro aspects of the temple complexes. When you looked at the big picture, these were large temples that were architecturally pleasing to the eye. But the closer you examine it, you notice that there is more and more intricacy to see. It reminded us of infinitely complex fractal geometry,

We hadn't really known what to expect of Khajuraho, and we were very pleasantly surprised. The art was just beautiful, and unlike anything we had seen before. It was definitely worth spending the afternoon here. It is rather unfortunate that the gray skies make the pictures look kind of gloomy. The temples seem like a celebration of life and earthly desires, and they seemed vibrant and joyful. I wish that had come through more in the photos.

Khajuraho is a small town and it seems like a bunch of temples in the middle of nowhere. The area is now kept alive by tourism, as it is one of the most popular tourist detinations in India. We are surprised that we had not heard of it before. Even though it required a whole separate flight to get here from Varanasi, we are so glad that Mukul decided to take us here.It is definitely worth the extra effort.

After finishing at the eastern temple group, we stopped at a nearby artisans’ shop. Outside there were large very finely carved statues in the style of the Khajuraho temple figures. We could see putting something like that in a garden. It must cost a fortune to ship. We went inside and there were handicrafts from around India, marble pietra dura from Agra, embroidery, etc. We were interested in the local craft – stone carving. We bought a couple of small pieces after much deliberation. when we came out it was dark, the sun having set while we were inside.

We went back to the hotel to relax for an hour, and then returned to the western temple group for the sound and light show (Son-et-Lumière) at 7:30 pm. Lots of local kids were lined up separately from the tourists – it seemed like maybe they had cheap rush tickets for locals. The staff checked bags for security and found my little Gorillapod camera tripod. They said that no tripods were allowed and they weren’t going to let me in with it. Mukul ran it back to the car for us, and we entered the grounds. There was a section where chairs were set up facing the temples. We sat in the plastic chairs and waited for the show to begin.

They lit up the temples and had English narration telling the mythology and history behind the founding of the temples. There were some puddles on the ground from the afternoon’s rain, and we could see the reflections of the lit up temples in the puddles. They used surround sound to make it more theatrical.

From http://www.mptourism.com/dest/khajuraho.html:

Hemavati, the beautiful young daughter of a Brahmin priest was seduced by the moon god while bathing in the Rati one evening. The child born of this union between a mortal and a god was a son, Chandravarman. Harassed by society, the unwed mother sought refuge in the dense forest of Central India where she was both mother and guru to her young son. The boy grew up to found the great Chandela dynasty. When he was established as a ruler, he had a dream-visitation from his mother, who implored him to build temples that would reveal human passions, and in doing so bring about a realization of the emptiness of human desire. Chandravarman began the construction of the first of the temples, successive rulers added to the fast growing complex.

It was pretty much impossible to get good photos (especially without a tripod), but we tried nonetheless. They recounted stories of the kings, architects, and artisans behind these magnificent structures. It was a typical temple sound and light show, as can be seen at some of the Mayan ruins of the Yucatan, and it was a little bit cheesy, as such tourist spectacles can be. But it was quite an enjoyable account of the history of the site, and a nice way to spend an hour in the evening.

After the show, we went back to the hotel and had dinner at their restaurant called Guatama. The food was phenomenal. Craig and Mukul once again shared a Kingfisher beer. Mukul told the waiter that we had enjoyed garlic naan at their sister hotel in Varanasi, and asjked if they could prepare some for us. We had kadhai paneer (cottage cheese in a pepper and onion sauce), chuza tikka masala, and garlic naan. It was delicious. We had really great chats with Mukul over dinner. We reflected on the day's events. It has been a long day - starting before sunrise in Varanasi and ending long after sunset in Khajuraho. It was hard to believe that we had done all of this sightseeing in a single day!

As we were wrapping up dinner and preparing to retire to our respective rooms, Mukul highly recommended the Ayurvedic massages at the hotel spa, and he said that we had some free time in the morning before departing for Orchha. Craig and I could use a good massage after all of those plane rides within the past 4 days, so we scheduled massages for 10 am the next morning. They cost 35 Euros for 50 minutes, which is a bargain by U.S. standards. We went to our rooms at 10 o'clock and I journaled until 10:45. Craig needed to ensure that he slept tonight, so he took a Unisom. It worked, and he fell asleep while I was writing.

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Khajuraho