No ravens here, but otherwise the story goes with the thread title:
The BBC's Owen Bennett Jones is in India to cover the election. In Varanasi he found himself on a boat being rowed down the Ganges towards a Hindu ceremony....
There in the fading evening light six priests standing on plinths on the riverbank were surrounded by thousands of people sitting on ancient stone steps that led down to the water.
The priests - some with long hair tied back behind their necks - were dressed in white robes from head to toe.
They started by blowing into some conch shells creating a low timeless sound and then came the bells and the incense swirling through the air. As the rhythmic chanting lulled the spectators into a state of spiritual relaxation, attendants produced lamps, each one with a thousand candles.
On the Ganges itself some candles in small bowls were launched on the calm wide waters - they floated into distance, diminishing specks of light.
"I am surprised I have never seen these images on TV," I remarked to another journalist on the boat.
"Oh! There are festivals all over India. They are happening all the time," he replied.
Back on the riverbank the priests had started whirling some sort of ancient looking contraptions in the air.
The bell ringing was more intense now, boys pulling on strings that made a whole row of bells high in the air, chime in time with the chanting.
And then to my side there appeared a convoy of wooden boats - a long procession meandering up the Ganges.
All eyes turned to them and on board there were children dressed as gods, their smiling, proud faces frames in swirls of gold and red braid.
If ever there were a physical manifestation of the romanticisation of the east which Westerners are so often accused of then here it was before my eyes.
"You can see how Orientalism got under way", I thought. "It probably started right here."
I wrote it all up. The festival provided exactly the sort of colour I need to brighten up what might otherwise have been a rather dry report on the politics of the constituency. I sent it off to London.
My editor - a man who knows India well having lived there for many years - sent me an e-mail.
"A touch of the 'Bharat darshan'," he chided gently, "look it up."
I did.
"Religion of the ancients," Google said.
I wondered what he meant. That it was all a bit ritualistic perhaps in the context of modern India. A throwback rather than a look ahead.
A couple of days later I was sitting in the BBC studio in Delhi with a young Indian journalist who had come in to comment on the election campaign. He heard my report in his headphones.
"You were in Varanasi?" he asked.
"Yes."
"And you recorded something at the ceremony they have on the river bank there."
"That's right."
"In a boat?"
"Yes. It was wonderful."
"You know the whole thing was invented by the manager of a luxury hotel in Varanasi about 20 years ago. He was trying to drum up the number of tourists coming to town."
"I see. Right."
Journalists get lied to so often that they generally end up fairly cynical, or perhaps to put it more kindly, sceptical. And let me say straightaway that I am not accepting the journalist's account without question.
Even if I went back to Varanasi and investigated the matter I have no doubt that some people would insist the ceremony has been going on for centuries.
That's the way with these things. But still it was a bit of a shocker. Perhaps you can never quite go far enough in questioning why things are happening - what purpose they really serve.
I emailed my boss.
"About that ceremony," I said. "You might well have been right."
I told him what the journalist in the studio had said.
"Ah yes," he replied. "The invention of tradition. Happens everywhere."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27049295
Here in Cornwall on feast days and holy days some men like to dress up in the traditional Cornish kilt.
Which is odd, because the Cornish tartan is younger than I am!
