Best Documentary
India: All Roads Lead to Benares | Deadliest Journeys
Benares, in the North-East of India, the most important holy city of the country… Planted on the banks of the Ganges, sacred river par excellence, few places in India are as colorful, chaotic and imbued with spirituality as Benares… Hindus cremate their dead, but to be sure that they reach paradise directly by avoiding the cycle of reincarnations, it must be done in Benares… Every day, strange funeral processions converge on the city, some come from very away... Then, in the tumult of the crowd and the traffic, the corpse is carried on the back of a man through the streets, for several kilometers to the bank of the Ganges... From the four corners of the country, every week, thousands of tons of wood arrive in Benares…Cremations are the main reason for this…It happens that up to 300 bodies are burned per day, such a flow imposes a bewildering stock of logs…The “wood route” is a huge business shared by a few local families… India and st also the world's leading producer of coal and all around Benares, open pit mines abound... Once extracted, the precious ore reaches the city's giant deposits by road... Throughout the year, thousands of pilgrims go to Benares to immerse themselves in the Ganges… We wash away our sins there, we implore the deities… By train, bus, tractor and even on foot, all means of transport are good to reach safely…
Published Oct 27, 2023
