Dicing with Death: India

Benares, India’s holiest town, is the final destination for millions of pilgrims. They come from all over the country, making the difficult, dangerous journey to bath in the sacred River Ganges. For some, this will be the last journey they ever make. According to Hindu mythology, the souls of bodies cremated here will avoid the cycles of reincarnation and go directly to paradise. Every day, hundreds corpses are brought here by their families to be cremated on funeral pyres. Thousands of tons of coal and wood are needed to keep the fires burning and a busy ‘coal-route’ has developed.

Danbadh, 600 km from Benares, is the starting point for the coal route. On some days there could be as many as 800 trucks waiting to load up at the mines, creating long traffic jams on the nearby roads. The newly-loaded trucks are particularly vulnerable to ‘grabbers’ – people who try and grab whatever coal they can from passing trucks.

“We’re not doing any harm really, it’s just a way to survive”, explains 13 year old Balboa, who leads a group of grabbers. “My family is very poor. How would we eat if I didn’t do this?” But for drivers like Pawan, the ‘grabbers’ are just the first in a long line of dangers – including bandits, dangerous roads and angry villagers – that have to be overcome before he can unload his valuable cargo at Benares.

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