Birth and death in the city of birth and death! A man collects human ashes and dumps them to a side, even as a corpse burns on the pyre, at the edge of the Ganges river in the ancient city of Benaras, known equally for sarees, filth, squalor, re-birth, religion and more… A family stands by as their loved one’s corpse burns to ashes, along India’s Ganga river. Pigeons fly around, cows amble by, as piles of wood stand nearby, for use in cremation ceremonies along the famous Burning Ghats of Varanasi’s river-side, in this ancient city of India.
Yet others wash their clothes in the river, while an old man performs his ablutions (bathes!) in the relatively slow-flowing waters…
Life goes on and by… Another huge stash of wood appears. That many more cremations to take place. Birth and death… All one and the same.
Pandits and pujaris do good business. Indians and foreigners alike (even A-list Hollywood stars, strangely enough) flock to this city’s strange magnetism. The filth and squalor of the town, the pollution and waste, the untreated sewage and drain waters, all mingle in the once pristine waters of the Ganga, now sullied with waste. But nothing deters…
This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of HD imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of tens of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM / SR 1080i High Definition, Alexa, SR, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world… Reach us at rupindang @ gmail . com and admin@wildfilmsindia.com.
AloJapan.com