This video is part of the documentary: «Palencia Singapore, the trip of the three oceans. " (1999)
They, the dead, they were the first to arrive. On a street by the Ganges river, in the city of Varanasi, dozens of corpses awaited the arrival of the living. The bodies were covered in colored robes and adorned with flowers. It had not yet dawned. They were not in a hurry. In the sacred city there is no time, It is limbo on earth, A place between two worlds that moves with the decorum of a funeral and is decorated with the colors of a party.
No one raises their voice, There we talk inside, which is the only way to talk to the gods. With the glow of dawn, The women sang in whispers while filing the baskets that would later accompany the first trip of the deceased with petals later.
No one raises their voice, There we talk inside, which is the only way to talk to the gods.
We arrived with the face of not disturbing and the heart baffled by the magical disorder of that place. And then the light came, An Indian light, implacable, that illuminated the temples. The banks of the Ganges became a sanctuary and the faithful, Family members, The tourists and the dead began to speak the same language, in silence.
Archaeologists say that the city got up 4.000 years to honor Suriá, The God of the Sun and the truth is that nothing has changed in the city without time. The boats leave an indescribable port that mixes cameras with the cry of the relatives. I saw the body of dead animals float, On the same waters in which the elders bathed seeking purification. Others washed their teeth and women immersed themselves as spectra, making the fabric of their saris over the divine waters. Only children broke with their jumps to the river the solemnity of the moment.
I saw the body of dead animals float, On the same waters in which the elders bathed seeking purification.
But among all mystical scenes, The crackling of the bonfires was what caused the greatest shock. From a respectful distance we saw the trunks burn, With their bodies. Yellow and red fabrics burned to calcinate the deceased. Then death seemed more death.
The smoke dispersing spirits completed the picture. The living wake the bonfires with last goodbyes. After, The remains were shipwrecked on the river accompanied by a fleet of baskets with flowers and candles lit. And I realized that the Ganges was an eternal river, that all that made some sense because it was really a limbo, A place of transition.
My visit to Ganges took place a few years ago, But this is a story today, And always and so it will be as long as the Sun God and Ganges come out, it continues to flow through the fields of India.
