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that it's a guaranteed way of getting to wait until people have thrown enough mon- I felt it was none of my business. What
heaven. This strikes me as one of the more ey onto the body before they burn it; on would you think if, just as you were stand-
bizarre aspects of Hinduism; if you can get the other hand, I was also told that there's ing in the graveyard watching your dearly
to heaven simply by dying in Varanasi and a dump truck that goes around collecting beloved being lowered into the frozen win-
making the correct arrangements, then why dead bodies, but whatever the truth, the ter soil, a bunch of yelping tourists came up
care about karma and caste and working sleeping beggars probably get a swift kick in and started taking pictures, saying things
hard all your life, why not just enjoy life and the ribs every now and then, just to make like, 'That's sick, man, check out that guy's
make sure you die in Varanasi? sure they're still with us. burning hair!' and 'This place stinks worse
than a butcher's shop!' I didn't want to get
But not everybody can afford to die in Va- I was rather paranoid about approaching involved.
ranasi. The wood for the cremation costs the burning ghats, not so much because of
money, quite a lot of it, and I was told that if the many travellers' tales I'd heard about But it's impossible to avoid the whole scene,
someone dies in the street, the authorities cons, hassles and rip-offs there, but because and despite my misgivings, I wasn't going

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