The evening of July 30th, the group walked the busy town of Varanasi, which is one of the oldest living cities of the world. It is situated on the north bank of the Ganges River, and is an important religious city in India since Hindu pilgrims come to wash away a lifetime of sins in the river, or to cremate their loved ones.
We were walking along a street, listening to Dr. Arvind Singh discuss the spiritual aspects of Varanasi, when I thought it was raining. I covered my camera, then looked down at my arm and noticed it wasn’t a raindrop that touched my skin, but rather ashes falling from the sky. We walked up stairs to view a cremation ceremony at a burning ghat (bathing steps leading down to the water). It was intense to see this ceremony, but we moved on to the cow covered backstreets only to have a funeral procession pass by.
Afterwards, we experience aarti, a sunset ceremony at the Ganges, where people send lighted candles down the river, and saw priest carry out a ceremony with music from conch shells, fire, and song.
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