Soul cleansing...

Soul cleansing...

India
Varanasi (Old Benares)
Being in India a visit to Varanasi,the Holy city of Induism, is a must.A city that can hardly cope with its own population is flooded every single day of the year with thousands of worshippers from every corner of the country that come to bath and save water in bottles from the holy waters of the Ganges river.
From 4 0'clock in the morning an inummerable and incredible crowd of men, women, children,beggars, lepers,crippled, blind but also animals as sacred cows, goats,donkeys even monkeys, all of them in the direction to the river bank in order to start the ritual of the Holy bath.
Few meters away another ritual is in progress, the burning of the deads in the open and the fumes together with the smell of the burned wood and flesh is intensely spread around.
Anybody strange to their religion and strength of faith can only stay apart silent with respect and awe to a ritual that may also signify a philosophy of life so much different from ours...