VARANASI, DAWN

Varanasi – or Benares – is beautiful, fascinating and mysterious. To me there’s something so intriguing about a deep religious faith visibly expressed; this 3,000-year old city is the centre of the world for Hindus, the holiest place, where the Ganges water (which looks horribly polluted, and it seems even the Gangetic dolphins have given it up) can cleanse their sins. Dying here guarantees them release from the cycle of rebirth, and families will bankrupt themselves to pay for a funeral. The Buddha gave his first sermon here, or rather at nearby Sarnath. Going on the river at dawn is de rigeur, but wonderful, out on the dead calm water, the vast city gradually appearing through the hazy dawn light on one side, on the other nothing, a long sandbank and then fields. ‘Holy men,’ Sadhus, are everywhere: one doing the Sun Salute, Shiva trident beside him, below; another, below right, wrapped in orange, perfect against the stripes of one of the bathing Ghats.

The Ghats are a constant, bustling pilgrimage site, with family groups going out on crowded boats or drawing chalk patterns for their little, clay oil lamps, thousands of which burn at night, outlining the steps and the buildings seen from the river. Above: a small shrine, inside – I love the simplicity of the soft red mound with the eyes, and the silver ribbon edging it, like party decorations – and outside, a red concrete box in front of the finely carved sandstone façade of a waterfront, 18th century Rajput palace.

My favourite thing in the city is the 1737 Jantar Mantar, one of five observatories built by the astronomy-obsessed Jai Singh, founder Maharajah of Jaipur. This one sits high up on a terrace atop his palace (each Hindu prince had one here) and is almost invisible from the Ghat below, to which it presents a conventional palace-front, above right. Up on the roof, however, a small selection of Jai Singh’s typical instruments including the Digansa Yantra are revealed in a bizarre, Surrealist vision like a di Chirico painting. Beyond can be seen the wide expanse of empty sandbank that faces this extraordinary, unique city from across the Ganges.