I have traveled to Asia several times, three of which were to India – a country far too vast, complex, and vivid to be captured in a single photograph. No single image can encompass its essence, just as no single frame can contain its more than 1.4 billion people. The population density here is nearly three times that of China, a fact that becomes strikingly evident in the teeming streets and bustling markets.
Over the course of my two-month journey, I explored a kaleidoscope of places, each one unforgettable. I reached 5,000 meters above sea level to find a remote Himalayan village in the Spiti Valley, where the air was thin but the sense of serenity was profound. I bathed in the sacred waters of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the spiritual heart of the Sikh faith, where the hum of prayer mingled with the clang of steel plates in the community kitchen. I slept in a 500 year old Haveli nestled within the indigo-washed walls of Jodhpur, Rajasthan, its ancient stones steeped in the echoes of centuries past. I wandered, along with thousands of others, through the electrifying chaos of New Delhi – a city that assaults the senses with its symphony of sounds, smells, and unrelenting movement.
But it was Varanasi that left the deepest mark on me. It took me several days to even begin to grasp its essence. Varanasi is the holiest of India’s seven sacred cities, a place where life and death coexist in plain view. It’s a living Dantean circle – a vision of purgatory or perhaps something closer to hell. Here, the flames never cease. Fires burn day and night along the ghats, their glow casting flickering outlines on the stone steps that descend into the Ganges. Every day, hundreds of bodies are cremated before the eyes of the living, while Shiva’s eternal flame – believed to have burned for millennia – flickers steadfastly. The acrid scent of burning wood and flesh lingers in the air, seeping into memory as much as into clothes. No image or video can prepare you for the visceral experience of witnessing this ritual, and no words can fully convey its gravity.
Throughout my journey, I found myself asking countless questions about India – its people, its beliefs, its contradictions – and yet, I’ve answered almost none of them. But one question continues to echo in my mind, louder than the rest, encapsulating them all:
“How does God hear all these voices?”
