Photo Essay: on the bank of the Ganges

The first time I put a foot in that city, will stay forever engraved in my memory. I’ve had already took a big choc, when I landed at the Bombay airport, but nothing in comparison to what I will see in this unique city of India… Varanasi.

The trajet that separate the train station to my hotel, put me right away in condition for what I was going to discover within the next few weeks. The heat was already burning at 10 am while the rickshaw I took was trying to go through this chaotic traffic. When I arrived to my destination, seeing all this animation, on and around the bank of the river, I understood that I wasn’t in a city like the others.

The city of Shiva.

Varanasi and the Ganges.

The Ganges and Varanasi.

The 2 of them can’t be disconnected. They just make one.

The Ganges is the spine of the city, and everything or almost everything, is happening around it.

It is the city where the most intimate rituals of life and death take place in public on the city’s famous ghats.

The Ganges, maybe the most polluted river on earth, is believed to have the power to wash away the sins of mortals.

The Ganges, where every night a puja is taking place.

The Ganges, where you can see people bathing, women and men washing clothes, kids playing, and cows cooling from the heat.

The Ganges, and is labyrinth of narrow streets, where it’s easier to get lost than to find out the result of: 1+1.

The Ganges, where you can see bodies getting cremated and ashes through into the river.

The holy river, the Ganges…