Up The Ganges

From Bodhgaya I headed west to the holy city of Varanasi. It is the city I mentioned in the entry "5000 year old fire". Varanasi lies on the western banks of the Ganges River which is the holiest river in India. Many people travel to Varanasi to be near the Ganges for various sorts of religious doings such as cleansing yourself in its waters or having your remains cremated on its shores. I mentioned before that the river is lined with concrete steps called 'ghats' and on these ghats, much of the city's activity takes place.
On my first day in Varanasi, after yet another long train ride, I walked the 7 kilometer length of the city's ghats. There are many interesting things to see along the ghats, not just the cultural and religious activities of the people but architecturally each ghat is different. Some have elaborate temple like structures built on them while others have more European, colonial architecture on them. Cattle, gurus, touts and tourists, its a great place to people watch.
Every so often, as I walked along, I would get bombarded by the people who were selling things and trying to get my attention, whether it was for boat rides or souvenirs. Often, I would be confronted by young children, anywhere from 6 to 10 years old, trying to sell these cups made of leaves and filled with a couple of carnation type flowers and a tiny candle. The candles were to be lit and set afloat on the river, shortly after saying a prayer for your family. The kids would hound you to buy these things. Mostly I would just say no or not say anything and move along. But on one occasion I was taking a picture and a kid came up to me. He gave me the usual routine of asking what country I was from and then went for the big sell. I kindly said no but he wouldn't stop. On about the 10th time I said "No" to him in a stern voice hoping to deter him. He looked at me angrily and said, "Bad Karma on you!" I just wanted to grab him by his ear and reprimand the little brat. But I thought better of it and walked away. Little did he know that "Bad Karma" had nothing on the Ghangida that was brewing in my innards.
If I hadn't mentioned this before, many of India's cities have cows and bulls wandering the streets. In the Hindu religion, cows are sacred so Hindus don't eat beef. They do, however, eat butter and yogurt (veganism is not practiced here). Some of the cows belong to people who use their milk to make those dairy products, others are just sacred cows that wander around all day and sleep in the street at night. It's not uncommon to see a cow with dye rubbed on its forehead or body and some sort of religious decoration around its neck.
The neighborhoods off the ghats in Varanasi are a maze of zig-zagging alleys. Not only are these alleys choked with people, scooters and motorcycles, but they are also full of cows. Many was the time I had to slip into a doorway to let a few cows pass before continuing on my way. And many was the time I had to dodge the land mines they left behind. After dark, there were no street lights, but your biggest worry wasn't getting mugged, it was stepping in a cow paddy with flip flops on.
My hotel in Varanasi was right on the Ganges River, over looking the Burning Ghat used for cremations. When I arrived at the hotel, the manager told me he had only one room left. He said it was small but had a big balcony. I said OK and he led me up five flights of stairs onto the roof. On the far other side of the roof was a small one room structure that was built onto the roof. It didn't have a balcony, it had the whole roof! The view was fantastic, I could see all the way down the ghats and look right down on top of the cremations. I said I'll take it.
Now, the manager could not emphasize enough the need to keep the windows and door closed on my little room so that the monkeys wouldn't get in. He also made me promise that I would remember to keep the caged door at the top of the stairs closed and latched whether I was up there or not. This meant that when I left the roof, I was to lock the cage door so the monkeys wouldn't make it down into the hotel, but it also meant that when I would go up onto the roof, I was to close myself out onto the roof with the monkeys. I wondered if I should be worried about this.
One day, while coming up the stairs to the cage door, I noticed a monkey sitting on the wall that goes around the edge of the roof. The monkey was looking down onto the ghats and didn't notice me so I took my camera out and took a picture of him. At the same time that he was not noticing me, I was not noticing another monkey who saw me and jumped up on the cage door. Since the cage door was closed and locked, I figured that this was a good time to test my monkey stare down abilities. Within a few seconds the monkey was snarling at me showing his big sharp incisors and shaking the cage. Now this wasn't really scary to me. What was really scary was when the monkey stopped shaking the cage and started to look around the edges of the cage and lock trying to figure a way in. He was thinking it out. I decided that I really didn't need to go to my room just then and headed back down into the hotel.
In Hinduism, there is a god named Hanuman. He is the Monkey God and is known for his super human powers of strength and agility. When the Heroine Sita was captured and brought to the island of Lanka, Hanuman lept across the water to rescue her. In the process though, he was capture and imprisoned. But somehow, while being held captive, Hanuman managed to set the prison and then the whole island on fire. He bounded back to the mainland a hero with the rescued Sita in his arms. Set the whole place on fire! I have no doubt.
When I finally returned to my room on the roof, the sun was setting and the sky was filled with dozens of little kites. They were only about one foot by one foot and made out of two little crossed pieces of bamboo, covered with a solid color of tissue paper. They were set a sail on the end of a string no thicker than heavy gauge sewing thread. I could see down below and in the trees various ones that had snapped loose and were now forgotten. Off in the corner of my roof was a small yellow one that someone had lost. I walked over to it and as I looked down on it, another small blue kite came crashing down next to it. I picked up the blue one and threw it back up into the air, it quickly taking flight again. But a few minutes later it landed in the same area. I picked it up again, but this time I heard voices calling in Hindi. I looked around and could see two guys way off on another roof. I initially thought they were telling me to throw it up in the air again, until I heard one of them shout in English, the word "yellow". Then I figured it out. I picked up the abandoned yellow one by its broken string and tied it to the top of the blue one then threw them up into the air together. They both grabbed the evening wind and took off into the sky. From the distant roof I heard someone yell, "Thank you!"
Let's see the Monkey God do that.