Varanasi – Facing death without fear | DW Documentary

In India, Varanasi is considered a holy city. Millions of Hindus believe that people who die here, in this city on the Ganges, are lucky. Because if they are cremated here, they can break the eternal cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

Director Oliver Mayer grew up in a world in which most people are influenced by the Christian promise of eternal life. In Varanasi, he wants to understand why it is considered salvation to escape a cycle of rebirth.

He himself has already had to come to terms with death: A few years ago, his mother died, and it took him a long time to come to terms with his grief. He is fascinated by the fact that the end of life is not necessarily seen as negative in Hinduism. He wants to know how people manage to face death pragmatically and without fear – indeed, almost looking forward to it.

Mayer visits a very special hospice for the dying in Varanasi. Here, he encounters a different, more relaxed approach to death. He meets extraordinary people. They include the priests and relatives who care for the dying, workers from lower castes who cremate the dead and children like nine-year-old Kajal, who poses for photos dressed as the deity Shiva to earn money to support herself, her mother and her little brother.

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39 comments

  3. Saved from paranoia saved from a sacrificed deprivation lifestyle, saved from not being killed by overwhelmative thinking devising and impairing a life living so happiness is experienced?

  6. Salvation of being recognized to not be forced into financial slavery fetish and forcing recognizing of a "no" participation want to be agreed etc.

  8. Fascinating documentary, I think everyone alive can benefit from thinking more deeply about death, since it is like birth, an inescapable part of being human.

  13. Thank you, DW, for this incredible and honest documentary. Indeed, ~For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one🙏Ernest Becker was right when he wondered: "Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever."

  20. 20 cents, 50 cents, some of the cheapest people in the world… I learned that in America as a taxi driver at the cruise ships… The One customer you do not want,… Is the customer that has a $4.90 bill and wants their change from a five😅

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