Varanasi: The holy city

Varanasi is a small town where about three million people move every day knowing that die there, it can save them from their fate.

When I came back in Italy, I was advised to read a book by Pier Paolo Pasolini “The scent of India”. I admit didn’t know that, and I have to say it was a revelation, because the observations of a sensitive man as Pasolini are totally and strongly present and you could easily imagine written today. His description of the Indian odor is perfect, it’s a mixture of smells and scents that stuns you in every corner, and that, in a city like Varanasi, becomes a form of continues meditation.

Waking up at sunrise and walk on gath observing people is a form of meditation and peace that elevates you to another sentiment towards the world.



In this book are the pictures of my days in Varanasi and narrate a day in the holy city, from sunrise to sunset and at night in a succession of rituals and everyday life pervaded by the “scent of India”.