The Red Cloak on the Ganges
Varanasi, India
The Ghats
December 2004

Photographer:
E.K. Schafhauser

The smoke from the rising funeral pyres mix with the early morning mist, painting a pastel appearance on the Ghats of Varanasi. The life of water mixed with the ashes of death create a canvas by which a woman in a red cloak, selling marigold flowers becomes the centerpiece. When life and death combine with color and form, the result is a gift of artistic composition. It is only a moment in time captured in a fraction of a second that makes it possible to share such a creation.