Ganga – Varanassi 14th May 2006

I was sitting on the roof top restaurant this evening about to type up the day’s events, when a song called ‘Brainwashed’ came on my ipod. It is the final song on the posthumous George Harrison album of the same name. George Harrison (ex-Beatle) died of cancer a couple of years ago and it is rumoured that his ashes were scattered in Varanassi on the Ganga River. The song starts off as an average pop / rock song and two minutes in a woman starts quoting from ‘How to know God’, a Hindi script and then goes back to pop / rock. Two minutes later and George Harrison starts chanting a Hindi prayer over tabla (drums). It’s quite moving listening to this after knowing what he went through in the final years of his life and the fact that his ashes were scattered on the river I was overlooking. I wrote the words below after listening to the song and recalling the day’s events.

The river can’t wash away this city
This city with five thousand years of history
Trampled into cobble stones
I’m walking by the river that holds so many bones

Timber piled up on the bank
Bodies burn, one per plank
So much death in this small town
A bloated corpse floats by facedown

Walking by the river that runs through this place
Gazing over history at my own pace
Miles and miles of men and women
I imagine all the footsteps I’m walking in

So many people in the morning rush
Young children that don’t have much
They’re running around in bare feet
Hassling tourists so they can eat

A beggar leaning on a wooden crutch
He’s not really asking for much
It’s sad that a town with so much history
Can’t or won’t feed it’s own family

Kids laughing and playing cricket
Wild dogs growling at a thicket
Water buffalo resting in the shade
A herd of cows dreaming of a glade

Eagles soaring overhead
I feel like being somewhere else instead
So much joy and so much hatred
I even see holy men sitting naked

I manage to find a secluded spot
I need a rest, as I’m so hot
The afternoon sun beating down
It’s time I got out of this town.