Holy city where faithful go to die


Final resting place: A cremator (centre) from the Dom community cleaning a pyre after funeral rites at Manikarnika Ghat along the banks of the Ganges river in Varanasi. — AFP

Some stay only days, others wait decades, but the crowds of elderly Indian Hindu devotees are calm and confident that their one-way pilgrimage to death will deliver everlasting peace.

Smouldering funeral pyres line the Ganges river in India’s holy city of Varanasi, where thousands of Hindu faithful come each year to spend their final days.

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