Marriage in India is a marketplace and the dowry system, which remains alive and well, is the currency used by most Indian parents to buy a good match for their daughters. Unfortunately, the numbers of Indian women who are murdered or left maimed and scarred because of dowry related issues continues to rise and goes largely unreported by the mainstream media.

In 1999, Himendra Thakur, in an article titled, Are our sisters and daughters for sale? estimated that more than 25,000 brides were killed or maimed in India each year over dowry disputes. Many suggest that numbers have increased since then by over 170%.

I would like to tell you about Sangita — a young, bright and attractive Indian woman with a 4 month old child. Sangita was a teacher at Buddha’s Smile School until she left to get married.

I visited her in a filthy public hospital in Varanasi, India in December 2006 with one of her friends. She had been there for two weeks, being looked after by her brother and her sister. I’m no doctor but it looked to me like she had third-degree burns all down her front — from her forehead to her knees. Her face (cheeks, eyelids, nose) were swollen and discoloured and covered in a thick white cream. Her lips, neck and ears were black and oozed blood. Two fingers on one hand had almost no skin remaining.

White cream mixed with red blood is not a pretty sight and when she saw us enter the hospital room she began to cry. Tears mixed with white cream and blood is even more sad and disturbing. I watched her with as much tenderness as I could muster. It was an effort. I didn’t want to look away, I wanted ‘needed’ to look into her eyes so that she might know an ounce of what I felt for her predicament. I didn’t talk to her. I didn’t think she’d understand English and I can’t speak Hindi. So just being there and looking into her eyes was all I thought I had to offer.

She’d told the police she didn’t know how she was burnt. She’d told them it was probably an accident, but others say different. They say she had kerosene thrown over her and that she was then set alight by her in-laws in order that her husband could re-marry and receive another dowry. They say she was frightened for the life of her child so she didn’t tell the the police what really happened.

Fact or fiction? You be the judge. But the fact that her in-laws wouldn’t pay for any of her medical bills or give her blood, the fact that her husband and his family were supposedly in the room when her clothes caught alight and the fact that none of them helped or called for an ambulance (she called her brother herself on a mobile phone 30 minutes after the event) seems to suggest something less than honourable.

I have been told that in India it is all too common for marriages to end in this way. Bride-burning or dowry-burning they call it. I suppose I shouldn’t be too shocked at the levels of unbelievable cruelty some people can descend to for money, but I am.

On Saturday January 13, 2007 at 6 am, Sangita passed away. She had suffered weeks of unbelievable pain and although we had moved her into the burns unit of a private hospital we were unable to save her life or make her last weeks on this earth pain free.

Sangita’s child is safe and being well cared for.

We will remember her always.

This photo has kindly been provided by Yoga & Health — Europe’s best selling Yoga magazine — who published an article about Buddha’s Smile School in February 2005. Sangita is the woman on the left. The woman on the right is Rajan, the principal of Buddha’s Smile School.

India has its tourist places and just like any other tourist destination they are full of conmen and people wanting to sell you something. It’s just more full-on down by the ghats than any other place I’ve ever visited. It gets tiring constantly being hassled and having to be on your guard against feigned friendship gestures and offers of help that are no more than someone trying to part you from some of your western wealth.

In all this the beggars and street merchants are honest. There is no doubt what they want, but the people who start talking to you, offering you help and advice so often in a friendly, hail-fellow, well-met kind of way, these are the worst kind of merchants. Not that they are really bad – they just want to make a living, feed the kids and lie down in a dry bed to sleep at night — just like everyone else. The trouble with this form of touting is that it causes people like me to start to shut down to advances from anyone — which is sad.

Yesterday as I walked along the Varanasi Ghats I was barraged with these sorts of advances. The worst was a guy who approached me and seemed like he just wanted to talk, to be friendly but as we said goodbye and shook hands, he started massaging my hand and then wanted money for his efforts. “Ten rupies, just ten…” But then he wanted more and I got angry with him gave him his RS10/- and told him to ping off.

There are so many people who approach you and want to tell you about a sight or a temple and then want money. All of them feigning friendship, talking, walking and then comes the sell.

Don’t get me wrong. The numbers of this kind of business people are small. Most Indians are not like that. But the few that are spoil it for the rest because, like me, a lot of tourists just close down and walk away.

It’s no wonder to me why a lot of Indian people complain that the average western tourist is rude and arrogant. They’ve probably just come back from having an unwanted hand massage at Varanasi’s main Ghat.

If you ever feel like experiencing a vivid demonstration of the Buddhist philosophy of impermanence then go shopping for fresh chicken in India.

Sitting beside the road there are cages full of chickens. You walk by and see these motley looking creatures eating, chirping to each other and sometimes getting annoyed with another bird who is trying to get a bit more space to live in.

All of a sudden a hand reaches into your cage and grabs you by the feet and hands you, up side down, to a nice young boy sitting crossed legged on a table. This nice guy nonchalantly lays you down on your side, puts his knee of your head and cuts your throat. He continues talking to his friends while he holds your convulsing body.

Life is very different here. There is a disregard for some things and a worshipping of others that I find difficult to understand. Life has great value and yet life has no value.

I woke at about 4am this morning to the sound of a gong. There is a monastery close to my guesthouse and each morning the gong sounds at 4 – slowly at first and then faster and faster until it just as suddenly stops. The vibrations hang in the air for a while and I lie in my rather hard bed thinking that I might hear the sound waves reverberate on forever. But as they get softer and softer this canned Hindu music starts up. It’s very loud and kills any subtleties that may have existed a moment before. I haven’t found it yet but there must be a Hindi temple close and for the next hour this loud, prayer-like music is all pervasive.

It’s cold this morning. People are rugged up and so am I. I walk the 2km to the Sarnath Cafe, order a black Nescafe coffee and my newest friend, Sukhdev Singh Saini arrives a few moments later with a hot curry toasted sandwich for me.

Daisy, Sukhdev and Rajan’s eldest daughter’s auto has arrived to take her to school, she shouts ‘goodbye John Uncle’ as she runs out the door.

The Dalai Lama arrived in Sarnath the other day and so did the multitudes. It’s a real circus. Indians, hippies and true believers mingle with monks and nuns and Tibetan gauchos in national garb. Lots of people looking devout, or important or simply in awe. The biggest/newest cars, mostly 4 x 4′s, are driven by the Tibetans. Horns blaring, they ride the narrow street displaying their importance.

Okay, that’s the cynical view. There are a lot of true believers here, too. Westerners and Indians and Tibetans and others that have come to listen to one of the greatest proponents for peace and happiness on our planet talk on Buddhist philosophy for the next 3 or 4 days. I don’t feel any of it though. I actually feel quite the outsider in every conceivable way.

Across the road from the Tibetan Institute and HHDL is Buddha’s Smile School. 200 kids from beggar families cramed into a few classrooms. They are given food and clothes and love and knowledge by Rajan and her teachers. Some of the kids seem so lost, something in their eyes, but most are happy and joyful. Except for the filthy, torn cloths, dirty faces and hair and the smallness of their frames, they might be kids from anywhere. When I look I can’t help seeing the poverty. It’s very sad but also uplifting to see these young people being helped in some small way. The kids seem to adore the school and some I have been told are making great strides academically. These kids live in tents or adobe huts or lean-to’s by the side of the road. They are all from the untouchable caste – the lowest of the low in the continuing highly class-driven society that is India.

Yesterday I went into Varanasi city for the second time. My rucksack broke and I needed to buy another day bag. On the way we visited an ex teacher who was in hospital. She had had kerosene thrown over her by her mother-in-law and then set alight. Why? No arguments, nothing to do with anything other than the need for money. Because now, if she dies, then her husband can remarry and the family will receive another dowry.

I was told of a case where the husband, mother and father in law tied the wife to a chair and then set her alight. What a magnificent and ugly place this is.

I’m sitting here at the birthplace of Buddhism — the Deer Park in Sarnath, where the Buddha gave his first teaching. I’m typing away as kids look over my shoulder wondering what the hell I am doing. The air is thick with smoke and my sinuses are objecting to the pollution. But I think the longer I’m here the easier it is for my body to adjust.

I haven’t seen much of Sarnath yet. I walked a few streets yesterday and today at about 10am I set out to walk around my new home for the next 14 days and see what delights await me.

I arrived here yesterday and caught a taxi to meet the couple who run Buddha’s Smile School, Rajan and Sukhdev, her husband. Buddha’s Smile School is situated below their modest home opposite the Tibetan Institute and adjacent to the Sarnath Cafe, which they own and Sukhdev runs and which also partly funds the school.

They are lovely people, who seem honest and quite unpretentious and warm. Sukhdev is tall and strong and a bit like an old fashioned British Sergeant Major with a great smile and a very warm demeanour. Rajan is shorter with a round face and huge eyes. She sparkles and you can’t help feeling you have known her forever and that once upon a time she was your mother or your big sister or your favourite aunt…

I arrived at the cafe, was welcomed and lead upstairs to their home. I was then made to sit on their bed and brought some really delicious food.

Indians eat with their right hand, mixing various Indian breads or rice with the food and then lifting it deftly into their mouths. To touch food with ones left hand is real no-no. Fortunately they gave me a fork and I apologised for my poor manners and ate the delicious veg and cheese dish. Sukhdev was a tad disappointed because he said the food would have tasted better mixed with my chapatti and vowed to teach me how to eat correctly. Which he stared to do when he brought me an equally delicious breakfast this morning.

Right now, to my right, over my shoulder and twenty paces away is the big Stupa depicted here on my blog. I mention it because I just looked up to talk to a kid who wanted to sell me a Buddha and I saw it and smiled, because I can’t quite believe I am here.

Believe me, here is no place special. I am sure there are thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of places more special. But it is special for me, not because it’s Buddhist, but because it somehow reflects this image of myself that I have carried around since childhood.

I arrived in Delhi at the grand hour of 2:30am three days ago. The flight was okay, as flights go. China Air is a recommendation. I thought the aircraft and the service was as good as any and better than some. But flying is as much a state of mind as it is anything else and on this trip my state of mind wasn’t that good.

I really can’t tell you why I didn’t feel good, but for the whole flight and for the first day in Delhi I had a headache and mentally felt down.

Day two in Delhi saw me surface with a smile on my ugly mug and I went sightseeing.

Delhi is an interesting city. It’s huge, very polluted in every way imaginable and crowded beyond explanation. But the people are just people and so I felt safe. Yes, you get hassled incessantly by rickshaw drivers, beggars, people, kids and the Indian culture of officious bureaucracy. Yet I find if I smile and wait and don’t show my frustrations, the beggars don’t hassle so much, people smile back and the ingrained, unhelpful bureaucrat that seems to sit inside many Indians becomes kind and somewhat helpful.

I took an auto rickshaw and had a great morning touring a few sights. The Red Fort, a huge Mosque I can’t remember the name of and a few Hindu temples. We also drove around old Delhi and experienced the old markets.

I stayed in the Tibetan Refugee Centre of Delhi which was lovely. Sort of Ganzi light, no nomads but plenty of monks and tibetan culture. The hotel cost me $30 for 3 night (yep! ten bucks a night) and food cost less than $2 a meal. I had a western loo and a shower that didn’t work so I bathed at the sink each morning in luke warm water – luxury.

This morning I had fun getting to the airport for my flight to Varanasi. The dive was by far the fastest and hairiest ride I’ve encountered in India. Boy did this guy drive fast. He was also colour blind and had a canny knack of being able to squeeze his car into the smallest spaces while picking his nose and spitting out of the window. He also dropped me at the wrong terminal. Which I didn’t realise until he’d left.

Indian airports are not places to come to if you are feeling at all impatient. Everything takes a lot of time, is considered most carefully and stamped three times. It’s fun if you can chill-out and it’s mind-blowingly hard if you can’t. After my initial trip here with Harvey in 2003, I’m now firmly in the chill-out corner.

Right now I am on an India Air plane to Varanasi. I’m typing this into my phone on a fold out keyboard. I seem to have come out the other side of my worries and am looking forward to the next month. I’m trying not to judge any of this or the people, even when they spit on the floor in front of me. Even when they piss and shit everywhere, even when the place stinks to high heaven and you can’t see the ground even once during an hour’s flight because of the pollution.

The world continues to turn and this country with all its issues does have a wacky specialness about it.