Burning ghats in Varanasi

Burning ghats in Varanasi.

A cremation pyre burns unattended. Goats and dogs defecate and amble nearby. People walk by, oblivious to the proceedings. A few people stop and view the cremation proceedings.

Varanasi also commonly known as Banaras is a city situated on the banks of the River Ganges in Uttar Pradesh. It is regarded as a holy city by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and probably the oldest in India. The culture of Varanasi is closely associated with the River Ganges and the river's religious importance. The city has been a cultural and religious centre in North India for several thousand years.

Birth and death in the city of birth and death! A man collects human ashes and dumps them to a side, even as a corpse burns on the pyre, at the edge of the Ganges river in the ancient city of Benaras, known equally for sarees, filth, squalor, re-birth, religion and more... A family stands by as their loved one's corpse burns to ashes, along India's Ganga river. Pigeons fly around, cows amble by, as piles of wood stand nearby, for use in cremation ceremonies along the famous Burning Ghats of Varanasi's river-side, in this ancient city of India.

Yet others wash their clothes in the river, while an old man performs his ablutions (bathes!) in the relatively slow-flowing waters...

Life goes on and by... Another huge stash of wood appears. That many more cremations to take place. Birth and death... All one and the same.

Pandits and pujaris do good business. Indians and foreigners alike (even A-list Hollywood stars, strangely enough) flock to this city's strange magnetism. The filth and squalor of the town, the pollution and waste, the untreated sewage and drain waters, all mingle in the once pristine waters of the Ganga, now sullied with waste. But nothing deters...

This footage is part of the professionally-shot stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM 1080i High Definition, HDV and Digital Betacam. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... wfi @ vsnl.com and admin@wildfilmsindia.com.

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