14. Manikarnika Ghat

The flower garlands are an important artefact for the decoration of the dead. At Manikarnika Ghat, consecutively, hundreds of malas are lying at the banks of the Ganges. They are a major source of food for the goats and cows living on this Ghat. Manikarnika means «the jewel that fell from the ear». A beautiful metaphor: When life comes to an end, a small stone falls out of the ear. Is it the inner voice that is silenced and hence petrifies? The Ghat's name my have a gentle sound to it, but the place is rough. This is probably Varanasi's most famous spot, known way beyond the city. Each day some fifty bodies are burnt on its pyres. To grasp the significance of this location I had to re-visit it a number of times.


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Everywhere men are present, death seems to be male around here, women are excluded. Their participation would make the proceedings too emotional, and that would create more karma, an impediment for the dead. This was one of the answers I had heard. On a first visit, arriving unsuspectingly, one is soon beleaguered by «tourist guides» who want to take you to a place where sick, poor people are apparently housed, for whom pyre wood must be bought in advance to make sure they get a proper funeral, to avoid their body being simply dumped in the river. This story and the place are obviously invented, and the donations demanded are outrageous. Once one shakes them off, one can sit on the stairs and observe the activities on the Ghat below.
There are porters – short, dark, and usually very thin men who carry the wood, heavy pieces of about one meter each. Some are so thick they seem as heavy as the porters themselves. Burdened with the heavy loads, they appear even shorter. I have never heard any of them speak. Silently they unload the boats, pile up the wood, keep it ready for weighing.
Another group prepares the pyres, each pile about one metre high, for the corpses. At the bottom, an opening is left to lit the fire. These are the fire guardians. They are taller, rougher, and most of them have rugged faces with teeth blackened from chewing betel. Their clothes are dirty and their interactions are tough, among themselves and with others. They virtually grab the dead from each other, argue at the top of their voices and easily get into fights. It is a hard job, and everywhere smoke, waste and stench. They kindle the fires with long bamboo sticks, make sure the bodies burn well. After three hours, they pick out the women's charred hip bone or men's sternum bone, and pass them to the river. Usually, around a dozen fires are burring simultaneously, and down at the river bank new dead bodies await their turn. Decorated with flowers – the men wrapped in red, the women in gold cloth, all are carried on bamboo stretchers down to the river by groups of pallbearers. The bodies are briefly submerged in the river, then await allocation of a pyre on its banks. Priorities are subject to complex regulations, but I could not decode them.
Not far from where I sit a man gets a shave of his beard and hair. A tiny tuft at the back of the head is left. He is the one who will light the fire, the eldest son of the family, or the husband of the deceased. Groups of men circle the dead, they remove the coloured cloth and lift them onto the pyres. They cover the body with an additional layer of wood, leaving the face free. Some add offerings, others walk five times around the pyre, some wear white clothes, again others start the fire with a bundle of thick grass and wait for it to catch on, then leave or sit away and drink tea.
On this Ghat, I rarely see moments of true farewell. They do exist, these subtle moments, like jewels in a pile of rough stones. An elderly man had placed his wife's body on the pyre, he was alone with her. He had covered her with wood and freed her face from the linen, had placed her hair behind the pile. She looked so peaceful, as if asleep. At some point three women in beautiful saris appeared, stood for a few minutes next to the body, and left. He then lit the fire. Thick smoke billowed up until the fire caught on. It took long to reach her head, to destroy the image of the sleeping woman at the river, to merge her body with the burning wood. Three hours later, hot ambers remain and the hip bone. It is thrown into the river, the ambers are put off with holy water and this life has come to an end.
Above the Ghat hundreds of birds are circling, mantras are sung in a small temple behind the terrace, and facing it is a group of men gambling for money. I leave, confused, not knowing what to do with all these impressions. I loose my way in the labyrinth of lanes behind the Ghat and finally emerge in front of the Chowk – the location of my video performance.


fotos atelier malas