Read Online All Kinds of Magic: One Man's Search for Meaning Across the Material World by Piers Moore Ede - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Piers Moore Ede
Tags: Travel, Essays & Travelogues
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I’d been here some years before and felt immediately at home on the bustling waterfront, with its plethora of pilgrims, boatmen, swamis both real and fraudulent, awe-struck Japanese tourists, tick-ridden mutts, portable barbers’ shops, knuckle-cracking masseurs, beggars, musicians, goats, corpses and a million other forms of God.
Along the waterfront there are massive flights of stone steps, stone piers and platforms that jut out into the Ganges, and on each of these a Brahmin priest sitting under a palm leaf umbrella awaiting the customer; behind this, the sharp spires of Hindu temples. Amid the clanking of bells, the buzz of innumerable voices raised in prayer, salutation or commerce, male and female bathers proceed in endless streams to the water, clutching their brass vessels to save some of the Hindu world’s most sacred water for future use.
What at first seems like perhaps the most anarchic place one has ever seen soon begins to reveal a complex system of order. According to scripture, each of the eighty-four ghats of Varanasi represents 1 lakh (100,000) of the species described in Hindu mythology. Of these, five ghats – known as the pana jala tirthas – have a special importance. Each represents one of the five natural elements, and to do any form of spiritual practice here is to see a far quicker return on one’s investment. In the same way that for certain Catholics, walking the road to Compostella guarantees, if not the key to heaven, then a bit of oil for the lock, the Hindu who reaches Kashi (the ancient name for Varanasi) feels that what he has to say will be heard here that much more easily. For those fortunate pilgrims, to stand on one of the five tirthas is to arrive – as close as one may in this earthly realm – within earshot of God.
It was on the edge of one of these tirthas , just as the moon was rising above the river, that I first saw an intriguing character who would open the door for me, over the weeks ahead, to the tightly knit subculture of the sadhus who seemed to line the banks of the river. He was French, entering middle age, although a ten-year heroin addiction made it difficult to tell precisely how old he was. When I laid eyes on him he was playing chess on one of the stone piers which overlook the river, his face quietly rapt, seemingly oblivious to the gathering crowd of Indians who were following the game’s every move.
Walking past at right angles, I saw only a dishevelled foreigner, pasty-faced and wrapped in a russet blanket, sitting across from a prosperous-looking Indian, clad in immaculate dhoti and waistcoat. The contrast struck me as amusing, for it is all too often the case that despite our comparative wealth by Indian standards, we travellers are invariably dirtier and less well presented than even the poorest peasant. Backpackers, myself included, seem anxious to quickly shrug off the expectations of conventional life, as we enter that nether world of ‘the road’. Our scruffiness and sheer disarray never fail to baffle the spotlessly clean Indians, whose very religion equates worldly cleanliness with spiritual purity. By that reckoning – amongst so many others – we travellers have a long way to go.
The Frenchman, despite his dishevelment, was at any rate thrashing the Indian chess player with apparent ease. Neither was the Indian doing his own credibility any favours by making constant references to a colossal tome laid out on the stone in front of him. Nudging closer, I managed to sneak a look at its cover. 62 Masterpieces of Chess Strategy , it was called, by one Irving Chernev.
As the moon swung out over the Ganges, diyas (devotional lamps) were laid out beside the players to ensure their view of the board. A chai seller trundled over with his metal canister to cater to the ever-present Indian need for a sweet decoction of Camellia sinensis . I struck up conversation with another spectator, who was able to give me the low-down on how this extraordinary
Along the waterfront there are massive flights of stone steps, stone piers and platforms that jut out into the Ganges, and on each of these a Brahmin priest sitting under a palm leaf umbrella awaiting the customer; behind this, the sharp spires of Hindu temples. Amid the clanking of bells, the buzz of innumerable voices raised in prayer, salutation or commerce, male and female bathers proceed in endless streams to the water, clutching their brass vessels to save some of the Hindu world’s most sacred water for future use.
What at first seems like perhaps the most anarchic place one has ever seen soon begins to reveal a complex system of order. According to scripture, each of the eighty-four ghats of Varanasi represents 1 lakh (100,000) of the species described in Hindu mythology. Of these, five ghats – known as the pana jala tirthas – have a special importance. Each represents one of the five natural elements, and to do any form of spiritual practice here is to see a far quicker return on one’s investment. In the same way that for certain Catholics, walking the road to Compostella guarantees, if not the key to heaven, then a bit of oil for the lock, the Hindu who reaches Kashi (the ancient name for Varanasi) feels that what he has to say will be heard here that much more easily. For those fortunate pilgrims, to stand on one of the five tirthas is to arrive – as close as one may in this earthly realm – within earshot of God.
It was on the edge of one of these tirthas , just as the moon was rising above the river, that I first saw an intriguing character who would open the door for me, over the weeks ahead, to the tightly knit subculture of the sadhus who seemed to line the banks of the river. He was French, entering middle age, although a ten-year heroin addiction made it difficult to tell precisely how old he was. When I laid eyes on him he was playing chess on one of the stone piers which overlook the river, his face quietly rapt, seemingly oblivious to the gathering crowd of Indians who were following the game’s every move.
Walking past at right angles, I saw only a dishevelled foreigner, pasty-faced and wrapped in a russet blanket, sitting across from a prosperous-looking Indian, clad in immaculate dhoti and waistcoat. The contrast struck me as amusing, for it is all too often the case that despite our comparative wealth by Indian standards, we travellers are invariably dirtier and less well presented than even the poorest peasant. Backpackers, myself included, seem anxious to quickly shrug off the expectations of conventional life, as we enter that nether world of ‘the road’. Our scruffiness and sheer disarray never fail to baffle the spotlessly clean Indians, whose very religion equates worldly cleanliness with spiritual purity. By that reckoning – amongst so many others – we travellers have a long way to go.
The Frenchman, despite his dishevelment, was at any rate thrashing the Indian chess player with apparent ease. Neither was the Indian doing his own credibility any favours by making constant references to a colossal tome laid out on the stone in front of him. Nudging closer, I managed to sneak a look at its cover. 62 Masterpieces of Chess Strategy , it was called, by one Irving Chernev.
As the moon swung out over the Ganges, diyas (devotional lamps) were laid out beside the players to ensure their view of the board. A chai seller trundled over with his metal canister to cater to the ever-present Indian need for a sweet decoction of Camellia sinensis . I struck up conversation with another spectator, who was able to give me the low-down on how this extraordinary
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