Varanasi : Offering to the Ganga

During our evening boat ride, we bought diyas to this little girl I mentioned before, and offered them to the Ganga.

I bought four of these little recycled paper cups filled with petals that the girl probably picked up from some seller at the end of the day, or who knows where as they looked extremely tired. Each had a wick and some wax in the middle. One for each member of my family. You are supposed to have a thought, or wish, as you do this.

My friend is a widow with two grown-up sons, and she also offered four diyas to the Ganga. Interestingly, the first one capsized almost immediately.

As she looked at my little diyas moving with the current, she commented on the first one moving much faster than the others, and said : "Here goes Michel, way ahead of everyone else." I started looking at this little group of diyas. She was right. One kept on moving ahead, two were very close together, and one seemed to hover on the side, not too close, but not too far either. I like to think that it was my diya, and the others were my daughters.