Varanasi / Bénarès (Uttar Pradesh)

Il n'y a pas qu'une raison pour laquelle Varanasi est considérée comme LA ville sainte en Inde. Il y en a mille. L'une d'elles réside dans le fait que c'est une des villes les plus vieilles d'Inde (même si la plupart des habitants clament haut et fort que c'est la plus vieille ville du monde, j'en suis fort désolé, mais leur superbe cité n'a "que" 6000 ans tout au plus - Damas est assise au même endroit depuis 11 000 ans), et on le sent lorsqu'on atteint Godaulia, le coeur de la ville. Ruelles étroites et labyrinthiques, petites échoppes à l'arrière des venelles, cette impression que rien n'a changé depuis des lustres. Mark Twain l'a parfaitement résumé : "Older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together." (Plus vieille que l'histoire, plus vieille que les traditions, plus vieille même que les légendes, elle a l'air deux fois plus vieille que toutes celles-ci mises ensemble.)

Surnommée la "ville lumière", la "ville des temples" ou encore la "ville sainte d'Inde", fondée selon la légende par Shiva, Varanasi est considérée comme un tirtha, un passage vers l'autre monde, libéré du cycle de naissance et de mort. Le Gange, qui la borde, y est pour quelque chose : se baigner dans ses eaux est censé purifier le corps autant que l'âme. Je ne rentrerai pas dans la polémique, mais il faut savoir que le fleuve reste pollué par autre chose que les carcasses d'animaux, les déchets ménagers, les déjections humaines et les restes calcinés des incinérés.

Car oui, on vient de partout en Inde, et certains de plus loin encore, pour mourir à Varanasi. Le touriste y vient pour la soie, les brocards, les saris, les tapisseries, le bronze, l'argent, les pierres précieuses. L'hindou vient y expirer et y faire brûler sa dépouille. Toujours cette histoire de tirtha. J'ai refusé, contrairement à la plupart des touristes, de prendre des photos des deux ghats spécialisés dans la crémation (comme Manikarnika). Des centaines de corps y sont brûlés quotidiennement, et des dizaines de tonnes de bois servent de combustible.

Bien qu'il y ait près d'une centaine de ghats, ou escaliers / marches menant à un point d'eau, il y a toujours foule pour s'y laver, faire ses ablutions, laver son linge, entre autres choses et dès le lever du soleil, bien en face de la ville.

Ce que j'ai beaucoup apprécié également, c'est cette mixité religieuse : hindouisme, bouddhisme, sikhisme, jaïnisme, catholicisme, judaïsme. C'est ici que Siddhârtha Gautama Bouddha a délivré son premier sermon. Rien que ça !

J'ai découvert beaucoup d'aspects de la ville grâce à un sâdhu (un saint homme, un ermite) que j'ai rencontré le premier jour et avec qui j'ai sympathisé : Uday Singh était (est) son nom. Vous le verrez apparaître sur plusieurs photos, car le brave homme aimait bien l'objectif (et encore, je n'ai pas tout mis). Nous avons beaucoup discuté, abordé des thèmes aussi variés qu'incongrus (en gros, de la théologie au croissants français en passant par Alexandre le Grand et ses gymnosophes) et marché, déambulé, flâné. Il connaît beaucoup de monde à Varanasi et m'a présenté à diverses communautés, notamment à celle attachée à un temple sikh. Je le remercie encore - c'est un sâdhu un peu particulier qui a une adresse internet.

Pour clore le chapitre et vous laisser regarder les photos, Varanasi est une ville où il faut se laisser perdre pour mieux l'apprécier, pour en retirer tout ce qu'elle a offrir. La plupart des touristes que j'y ai rencontré y était déjà venus, certains en faisaient un lieu de pèlerinage. J'admets : la ville reste un lieu incontournable, embrumée de mystères et empreintes d'une sainteté palpable, prégnante, sensible à la lumière particulière que le Gange fait miroiter ou, parfois, semble absorber dans ses eaux mordorées.

Puri & Bubaneshwar (Orissa)

 

Située à quelques kilomètres de Konark se trouve la ville de Puri. J'ai longé le front de mer frondé de plages de sable blanc, dans un bus bondé, pour accéder à cette bourgade qui ne peut avoir d'autre prétention que de posséder un énorme complexe de temples, malheureusement interdit aux non-hindous. Les photos se font du toit d'une des deux ou trois antiques bibliothèques (accès payant, ça va de soi) du centre-ville.

La ville de Bubaneshwar, quant à elle, est la capitale de l'état d'Orissa. Aussi vaste que pauvre, où les pollutions sonore, de l'air et de l'eau font rage, sale jusqu'à l'écoeurement, bref : la ville indienne lambda. Il faut fouiller un peu, mais on y découvre de beaux temples, de belles bâtisses, des gens sympas, des marchés intéressants et de la bonne bouffe. Pour information, les photos de la ville commence à celle dépeignant la devanture de Moustache Jeans. Sans commentaire. Vraiment, non, je ne commenterai pas.

Pour visionner l'album, c'est par ici.

 

Konark, aka the Sun Temple (-18) (Orissa)

I believe a picture can speak a thousand words. This one is a good example (well, not technically a thousand words, but enough words to get the picture).

No one could have put it better. Cheers. I have an addendum, though. When they write "sensuous modelling, pulsating with human emotions", they should have written "downright erotic".

Now for the pictures, so that you can figure out for yourself what I mean by erotic. There are many examples disseminated throughout India. I was on my way to one (Khajuraho, in Madhya Pradesh) when I had my accident. Have fun!

A short example of the Indian traffic...

...which is running smoothly in this video. The actual traffic is wayyyyyyyyyyyyy worse than this. Imagine ten times more tuk-tuks (the three-wheeled taxis), buses, motorbikes, bicycles and people, plus you should level up the honking so that it reaches decibels yet unheard of by any Westerner's ears. Enjoy the silence (really, I mean it).

By the way, near the end of the video, there's a man selling fruits on a cart, just spot him and bear in mind where this chap's making business.

12 seconds of kitsch

First Indian Pictures!

You can find them there.

The place is Nellore, North of Chennai. There I met with Dalits, or Untouchables, in the middle of nowhere. They were angry because another group of Dalits were beating them up over a sombre issue of land. That's why they drew this big figure on the road, some magical entity meant to scare them off. They were very nice to me though. They showed me around. They wanted to share their meal with me.

Next I went downtown, by and under the railway bridge at first, then to the covered market. I soon became a local attraction. Apparently not so many tourists wander off in these parts.

Nellore appears like a large village made up from a cluster of villages huddled together. I have been told that the population is nearing a million. Still, it looks like a village to me.

Butterfly

 I was woken up by the faintest sound, like a fluttering of wings. It was about noon. I was taking my preprandial nap. It was a butterfly. I was astonished. I said so. “My, there's a butterfly stuck in the room.” That's what I said, word for word. Out of the few days or weeks this butterfly had to live in this physical world, he was doomed to spend a few hours here with me, banging and crashing on the windowpanes, circling the wooden beam in the middle of the room. I did open the doors. Wide open. A full-grown baby elephant could have manoeuvred in there without but brushing past a hinge. The lepidoptera didn't find the way out, though. I couldn't leave the door open too long – it was getting cold, you see. November can be cold after a cool summer. So it remained in the room – I still wonder how it entered it in the first place – until I saw it not. It was perhaps laying flat in some nook or cranny amid the junk and miscellany stored in here, waiting for something we can't understand the value of. I wish I had been a butterfly, or I wish I could be one, as much as metempsychosis would allow me, so that I could understand what it meant by that.

I understood then that much of men's behaviour could find an equivalent in the animals' behaviour. I was a butterfly. Some were snakes. Some were bulls or sheep or fish or worms. Some were giraffes and others elephants. The desert mole rat's behaviour might mirror that of Indians'. Europe is full of black-backed jackals. Some species are sedentary, some are nomadic. People who live on their own are a bloody pain. They never know what they want, pass it by without blinking and, being offered something else, discard it with a cantankerous wave of the hand. Perhaps a snicker. And then I knew the butterfly in me was dying. It was one of those nights when you could almost see the links between the stars, drawing the constellations for the naked eye. I decided to leave.

I took the first ship out of the continent, then learnt to ride a horse, learnt the rules of the desert and became aware of thirst and hunger. I rode and rode. I went to Samarkand. Mingled with the merchants for seasons unaccounted. On being attacked by a swarm of bandits, I left the caravan and joined the thieves. We roamed the deserts of Persia, assailed, plundered, haggled the stolen goods, caroused, slept with the glossy, tenebrious dome over our heads and bought whores and drank tea.

One night I stole the captain's horse and rode for ten days and ten nights. The stallion died and I pursued on foot. I arrived at dawn, dusty and tired, in Merv, in Turkmenistan. There I hid in the suburbs, stole fruits and vegetables from the back of stalls, washed downstream in the river, bidding my time. One day, I spotted the palanquin of a prince. I knew of him through legends and hearsays. He would ride in his palanquin, all curtains drawn. No one had ever seen his face for he constantly concealed it under a shawl. He was all mystery. I sneaked in his palace under the cover of darkness and hid under his bed for two full weeks, stealing occasionally from the various fruit bowls laying here and there. There I eavesdropped his every habit. He was a man of few words. He received no visitors. One night, I stabbed him in his sleep, pierced his heart with my dagger and unveiled his visage. Amidst tormented flesh and disfiguring scars were set a pair of pale green eyes.

This is how I became the Mysterious Prince of Turkmenistan. I found the name myself. I spent lavishly in parties I didn't attend at first. I offered exquisite jewels to splendiferous princesses. I donated money to the city council, erected orphanages and schools. I made love to princes and princesses alike, always making a point not to reveal my figure. Never. Not to anyone, under no circumstances. I was served in gold dishes, I shat in gold buckets. A slave wiped my buttocks clean. My scam could have gone on for ever were it not for the sudden appearance of the real prince's brother who, hearing on the coming out of the prince, thought his brother had recovered from whatever demons assaulted him and was finally blending with his peer. He was too sharp and suspicious a fellow not to die at my dagger's tip. I fled at once, only with the gold and jewels I could carry on my person.

I travelled on horseback without stopping to sleep or feed, took shelter in caves, slipped into caravans and ships. However cautious I was not to leave traces of my passage, I was chased after. I had to kill to live. I had to steal food to live, I was forced to pinch horses and mules and carts. On occasions I couldn't but ransack, despoil, embezzle and burn to the ground to save my skin. I was hunted again and again, relentlessly. I remembered the Erinyes in times long gone. Reward posters were pasted in every city I reached, forcing me to seek refuge in deserted areas. I was probably the most wanted man in the whole silk road, perhaps in the entire Ariana. I fed on roots and drank dew. Rats were my only companions and meals in the last ship I took.

I ultimately attained Sevilla. There I set up a shop as an alchemist cum banker cum general goods store. The knowledge I had acquired and the little gold and jewels I could save allowed me only this. But business was good, for I was not known. I experimented on various metals, obtained gold after much fumbling, tried my hand at dissecting living things, subjecting them to the absorption of the various gases I was using and multitudes of plants and medicinal herbs. Fire gave good results too. I compiled all my results in books with titles such as: “The Black Boke of Magick Spelles”, “The Boke of Torture and Various Methodes of Inflickting Pain”, “Anatomie of Man” and such like. They sold so many copies and people asked for so many more that I had to hire scribes.

I soon met my future wife because she kept on coming to my shop under various pretexts, started to help me, doing menial tasks at first, then entrusted herself to seeking out herbs on her own and gradually made herself invaluable. We were married a week later. She became heavy with child almost at once.

We now live in a comfortable house in the new part of town. Notables and princes from Spain, Morocco and such countries come to seek my advice or my potions. I count a handsome number of kings and queens as my clients. My chest is filled with gold and jewels and precious stones. My children receive a good education for I insist on the tutors to come every day. I trade silk and spices, carpets and saffron from the very cities that vowed to put me to death. A young gentleman whom I befriended recently wants to write a book on my adventures. He comes every evening after dinner, and I exchange wine and dates against an hour or two of conversation, a handful of words he conscientiously pens on dirty pieces of parchment. He is not the only one to revere me, I usually marvel at my being here, alive, in one piece and sane enough not to put my eggs in the same basket.

All of this happened because a butterfly was stuck in my room, and wouldn't come out. Funny.

From McLeodGanj, 24/10/2011, early morning

I

Closed palms counting what the open hands contain

Phalanges figuring heads by the dozen

When pointing fingers can only tell ten

II

As I lay floating above the treetops

Tawny eagles swooshing underneath my feet

- This morning's chai tastes really sweet!

 

Kathm-haiku

Smell of dull incense
Coiled in the dying-out street
Late passers-by don't stop anymore

Cackling at her offspring
Like a hen would at her chicks
She chides them into place around the table

Lull

Namaste guys!

I know it's been quite a while since I last published anything on the blog, but being on Indian and Nepalese roads isn't quite as blog-enticing as I thought it would be. A great many things to see and do, especially here in Nepal. Many people to meet and to learn from and to listen to. Mountains to behold. Morning dew to play with. Temples and shrines and festivals to contemplate. Brightly-coloured prayer flags and snake-like incense wisps floating in the breeze.

'Tis fun, I have to admit, to have to stay in one place and getting to know the people. Spraining my ankle up there in Langtang wasn't such a bad thing, after all. Everyday I sip a cup of black tea with Krishna, help him at the shop (taking care of the shop for 5 minutes and then closing down yesterday night was quite something) and meet and greet the newcomers. Sometimes guiding some, like Shota, one of my Japanese friends.

Strange to say, I am not sad to leave them all on the 15th. Pokhara - and then Lumbini, the historic Buddha's birthplace - promise to be of note on my way back to India (Uttarakhand). Perhaps it is so because I know I'll come back to Nepal, sooner than later, and that like the Himalayas, some people remain immutable.

For a stranger reason still, Japan has never seemed closer to me than now. I really should busy myself learning the language. Natsuko, Shota, and even more importantly Yoko, domo arigato gozaimasu!

In the meantime, I hope you are all keeping well, and enjoying whatever you are doing, wherever you are. For those who are embarking on a trip around the world, the Irish people would say:

Go n-éirí an bóthar leat.
Go raibh cóir na gaoithe i gcónaí leat.
Go dtaitní an ghrian go bog bláth ar do chlár éadain,
Go dtite an bháisteach go bog mín ar do ghoirt.
Agus go gcasfar le chéile sinn arís,
Go gcoinní Dia i mbois a láimhe thú.

Which loosely translates:

May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind always blow at your back.
May the sun shine softly on your forehead,
May the rain fall lightly on your fields
And until we meet again
May God keep you in the palm of his hand.

If any Irish wants to tighten my translation and/or correct the text (not sure about the accents and it would be even more surprising if I haven't mis-spelt a bunch of words), you're heartily welcome!

Namaste everyone, and take care.