TRAVELS w/P: Tales of Adventure Here & There

What a "shitty" day. Literally. The stench was such that a scarf came in handy as a filter. And you daren't walk around without keeping an eye on the ground lest you step into a mound of human waste, or cow or goat or dog crap. Walking along the shore of the Ganges following a monsoon that left steps buried under silty sludge was at times gross to the extreme. Runoff from the city splashed and spilled and pooled in places that made it impossible to keep clean feet. Lynn had me laughing out loud as she walked through an especially mucky section (likely teaming with filthy nasties). Fingers splayed, looking not quite horrified, but clearly beside herself, feet sinking with each step. "Oh god...oh god...oh god...!"
Then there were the beggars who followed like shadows- mothers holding the tiniest frail babies with vacant staring eyes. Or sporting unimaginable deformities. Panhandlers tenacious as pit bulls. Throngs of people jostling for a slice of road.
Sadus - holy men with long greasy hair, minimal clothing, maximum lung capacity for ganga to help speed up enlightenment. It was mind bending. A distortion of proportions unparalleled at home. And to be shopping in the thick of all this?
Then came the late afternoon visit to Harishchandra ghat- a cremation ghat. Watching remnants of bodies - the hips of women, the chests of men "bone with meat" taken from the embers and tossed into the Ganges to perpetuate the circle of life (fish food). Watching the first born sons of the deceased starting the fires, pacing as their loved one's body turned to ash, finalizing the ceremonial farewell by dousing the fire. The bodies of dead women draped in red cloth; men in gold; though come time for cremation, they're all simply shrouded in white cotton. Their faces viewed a few times more as they're laid out on the stacked heap of wood. Sandalwood shavings sprinkled over the body to keep down the smell. Bones visible. Generations one after the next charged with managing the cremation site for centuries now. Their offspring, young boys of 8 or 9 or 10, playing around the ghat, oblivious to the solemn significance, learning at the hands of their fathers and uncles and brothers. Visiting the temple/hut where the flame that sets these bodies ablaze has been burning for as long as the tradition itself. Phew. What a day.