photos by rasa

On first arriving in India as a young music student in 1970 I was led to a sitar teacher in the city of Benaras (also known as Varanasi). While growing up in America I had no connection to India, but when I arrived in this most holy of all Hindu sites of pilgrimage, I curiously felt more at home than in my own home town. Almost nothing looked familiar but somehow I effortlessly understood how everything fit together. I didn't know what a lot of things were or meant. I didn't know why the woman was wrapping a yellow thread a thousand times around a large tree trunk while chanting and walking in a thousand circles. I didn't know why that man in the middle of the street was bending down in front of a cow, deeply engaged in a seemingly one sided conversation. Every moment of the day in India I experienced some sight, sound, taste, touch or smell I didn't understand, and yet on some deep level it all made sense to me. I suppose it's something like the ability to enjoy music from an unfamiliar culture.

The city of Benaras stretches along one side of the sacred river Ganges. I lived in an apartment in Asi, in the Southern part of the city, where pilgrims traditionally begin their ritual visits to five holy ghats on the river. Ghats are stairways and landings leading down into the water, and in Benaras they are crowded with teachers and seekers, yogis and sidewalk pedlers, con-artists, tourists, beggars and saints. Walking from Asi Ghat to the main Dasaswamedh Ghat downtown can be a journey of enlightenment, both literally and figuratively, in ways that shock the senses, and challenge our deepest understandings. In this place it's hard not to question yourself and the meaning of life, and puzzling when you don't always get the answers you expect. What does it mean to be self-conscious in a culture that believes the self is an illusion?

The photos on this page come from a six month visit to India in 1984, and include scenes from Benaras, Delhi, Agra, Calcutta and the cities of Jaisalmer and Udaipur in Rajasthan.