The Varanasi Project

After two and a half weeks in  Rishikesh I felt as if I was leaving home. The place is full of love and the people there made my stay there forever memorable. With a smile on my face, and a little happy-tear slowly going down my cheak, I continued my journey through India to the holy city of Varanasi.

My plan was to meet the incredible people of the Sankat Mochan Foundation (see link on the site).  Despite continually increasing pollution of the holy river, these people keep  fighting for a clean Ganga. Unfortunately my timing was bad, and they were very busy finishing an important report and therefore could not accept any help. I did however have  good conversations with these good people. This was very enlightening.

A tragic fact about the pollution is that 95 % of it is due to the work of informed and educated people, that is the industries and savage systems. Another is that there is an easy solution to the problem, however the government has little real interest in the project. All they want is the public goodwill… and they can easily get that by stating wonderful – but unrealistic – facts in the media.

Another huge problem, counting the other 5% of the pollution,  is the mentality of the people of India. The River is the Mother of India, mother of life, and is the destination for millions of Hindu pilgrims every year who travel great distances to take a bath in the holy river. But this does not mean that they respect the river – their mother. They treat it severely bad. Rubbish is floating by every ghat (bathing place), the cows shit in it, the aches from the burning ghats go into the river, and dead children and others that cannot be burned are thrown into it. It is difficult to imagine it being holy, or cleansing, let alone seeing any life thriving well in such an environment.

Talking to the people of Varanasi it seems that they take the rivers severe condition as an unavoidable fact. They do not see that they can prevent this. They do not see what they are doing wrong. They do not know the concept of respect for nature and the environment and hygiene. That I thought was hard to deal with.

Since I did not get the change to work with the SMF I decided to do my own little project. I got three disposable cameras and ten packages of biscuits and head down to the river one afternoon. I got some children with me and asked them what they thought of the situation. I then tried my best to explain to them that the Ganga should not have to be like this, and asked how they thought it could be better. After a little chat we all walked together as they took photos of the dirty Ganga. After a good hour of photoshooting we sat down for a long-awaited-biscuit brake.

It was interesting to see the childrens approach and I am excited to see the results. I know that it needs further development, but this project is something I think could become something more. Now in Delhi, I look forward to going to Chennai (Madras) for the World Comics Workshop, where I will get a change to work with children again. I am sure I will learn alot from that.

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