When traveling on an overnight train, follow these rules: Make sure to wake your bunkmate if you go to the bathroom, stow your suitcase with zippers facing inward, and avoid prolonged eye contact with strange men.

On our third and final train ride, from Agra to Varanasi, we passed the seven hours sleeping in paired bunks, one piled on top of the other. Tired and weary, we boarded the train around midnight and fell quickly to sleep. Morning broke and soon the singsong repetition of “vegetable cutlet” from a vendor walking through the aisle reminded us of where we were and lulled us back to sleep. Finally Sree Sreenivasan woke his tribe of 14 children with smiles and cookies. A few students sipped sweet chai tea as our train pulled into our penultimate destination: the city of Varanasi.

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Approximately 300 km southeast of Delhi, Varanasi is on the western bank of the Ganges River. Called Ganga in Hindi, the river is often known as the Ganges, the name it was given by the British. It is the locus of city life and impossible to miss; the maze-like streets lead directly to it. Our hotel, the Palace on Ganges, sits above the water.

Varanasi is one of the oldest living cities in the world, and is for Hindus what Mecca is for Muslims. The Ganges is the pathway to eternity, where daily ablutions are performed and souls washed clean in the same water where most residents wash their laundry and brush their teeth.

Hindus believe those who are cremated and released into the waters of the Ganges will attain salvation and liberation from the karmic cycle of death and rebirth. The ghats—or steps that lead down to the ritual bathing areas—are the holiest places on the waterfront. It is here that pilgrims disrobe at daybreak and light candles at nightfall. Tourists pass by in throngs of row boats, snapping pictures and disrupting the quiet.

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Tara Devi watches worshipers' shoes while they pray. When the bomb exploded, she hid behind a tree. (Aili McConnon)

On March 7, the day we departed New York for India, Varanasi was struck by bomb blasts at the train station and a temple, with another explosive device diffused in a nearby residential area. Some students were nervous about going at all. “Is this the place where the bombing took place?” questioned ArunaViswanatha first thing Friday morning, as we made our way through the Sankat Mochan Temple, site of the most recent bombing and among the most sacred of the thousands of temples in the city. Viswanatha, whose family is Hindu, spoke of feeling disconnected as we wove through crowds of worshipers and many in our group whose foreheads were also dotted with orange kumnkumn powder. “I think it would be more poignant if I weren’t with all of you,” she said, “It
almost detracts from it. I can’t feel it.”

Because the temple visit was the most newsworthy of any religious site we visited during the two week trip, questions were plentiful and translators in demand. “By the grace of Hanuman,” said our guide, Sameer Mathur, “Just a few people died.” Hanuman, known as the monkey god, is one of the most popular gods in Hinduism and the one to which the temple is dedicated. The bomb exploded shortly after six o’clock in the evening of Tuesday, March 7, while nearly a dozen couples were waiting to be married in the temple’s courtyard.

Since the blast occurred during wedding season and Tuesdays and Saturdays are the most heavily attended by worshipers, many think the bombing date was timed to wreak the most havoc. Several militant Islamic groups have been mentioned in connection with the blasts but investigators have yet to turn up any conclusive proof.

Ari Paul asked whether both Hindus and Muslims came to help following the bombing. Mathur responded that “we weren’t asking who was Hindu and who was Muslim” as the injured were removed on improvised stretchers made of blankets. Though Varanasi’s majority population is Hindu, approximately twenty 15 to 20 percent are Muslim. A week and a half after the bomb blasts, the city is calm and attendance at the temple is back to normal.

Raju, who does not have a surname, sells trinkets across from the courtyard where the bomb went off. He remarked that little had changed since and he returned to work the very next day. “They believed in God then,” he said, his shirt still pink from recent Holi celebrations, “They believe in it now.”

Tara Devi, who looks after worshipers’ shoes while they pray, has worked at the temple for decades. She hid behind a tree when the blast went off. “Of course I was scared,” she said, “But now there is so much security that we’re not scared. We’re a little nervous and anxious and are always looking for bags and boxes or anything strange.” Since the bombing, dozens of police officers now secure the temple and two metal detectors are installed at its entrance.

Walking out of the gates, Stacey Samuel remarked, “I would think that like elsewhere, people would abandon the temple out of fear, but I’m most impressed that instead they’ve come in greater numbers.” Carolyn Slutsky chimed in, amazed by how “even at 11:30 in the morning, tons and tons of people are being devout.”

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Later in the afternoon we met with Professor Veer Bhadra Mishra, who was named by Time magazine as one of the heroes for the planet. He taught hydraulic engineering at Benares Hindu University and now oversees the Swatcha Ganga Campaign, dedicated to cleaning the polluted river.

Talk quickly turned to the bombings, since Mishra is also mahant, or high priest, of the Sankat Mochan Temple. He considered it God’s grace that the bombings had not escalated into a larger problem. “We were there to tell people that we are to be calm,” said Mishra, “The temple was calm. The city was also calm.” Concern turned to reporters, who have flooded the city since the blasts went off. “The media makes a scripted story,” he said, “And then they start finding actors for their story.”

As we made our way via auto rickshaws to a vegetarian feast, Erik Wander remarked, “It was the best sit-down we’ve had yet.”