Burning Man

Title: Peace, Love and a little bit of Weirdness

Location: Black Rock City, Burning Man, Nevada Desert

Photographer: Tim Charody

Title: Castles Built on Dust
Location: Black Rock City, Burning Man, Nevada Desert
Photographer: Tim Charody

Title: Portable Stereo

Location: Black Rock City, Burning Man, Nevada Desert

Photographer: Tim Charody

Title: me (right) and two new, awesome friends in our furt.

Location: Black Rock City, Burning Man, Nevada Desert

Photographer: Gene

Title: Alien Landscape

Location: Black Rock City, Burning Man, Nevada Desert

Photographer: Tim Charody

To explain it in one word. I would have to say ‘Utopia’. It is by far the most free, accepting, bizarre and down-right awesome place I have ever been to.

Time and money doesn’t exist in the land of Burning Man, judgement, stereotype and preconceived ideas are left at the front gate and for one whole week at the end of August each year, a gathering of mind-boggling creativity, free love and radical self-expression occurs in the dust-bowl of the Nevada Desert.

Like any first-time burner, I had my questions and doubts. I knew I had to go, but that was it. I didn’t know why, I had no idea what to expect, in fact my entire decision to turn my life upside down (literally..) and take off to the hostile deserts of Nevada from my home in Sydney Australia for a single event, was based purely on a hunch; I just knew I had to go. And I’m f**king glad I did!

And I knew once I put pen to paper that it would be hard to explain what I saw and experienced at Burning Man and it really is, but Ill try to sum it up in one long-winded, unpunctuated sentence:

I left my old life back in Sydney on a hunch flew to San Fran / bussed it to Reno / hitchhiked from Reno with supplies / sat in traffic for hours / enjoyed every second of it / realised that this was going to be the most amazing experience of my life / felt at home among the smiles laughter of fellow burners / got in / slept on the dust / woke up in a wonderland / helped set up our impermanent zero-impact community / walked thru the desert / met countless amazingly open-minded positive souls / day turned to night / got abducted by a UFO / driven to a crazy party in the middle of the desert / scene out of madmax / danced for hours / jumped on a cruise-liner / dropped off at a wooden pier / went fishing with hippies / walked thru the desert / felt like I had left earth all together and landed on another planet / ended up at another party / danced with a flock of zebras / met more awesome souls / watched the sunrise / fell asleep / woke up on a giant pool table in middle of desert / got stuck in a dust storm / sought refuge in a giant shell / walked in on two stories of people doing yoga naked / walked back into the dust storm / saw someone running towards me from the other side of the desert / kept walking / person got closer and closer / kept walking / person arrived puffing and panting / handed me a bottle of water because he thought I looked thirsty / person ran back in direction he came from / rested under a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex / shared a drink with someone else who I thought looked thirsty / arrived at another party / took a lollypop from someone wearing a shirt that said 'candy from a stranger' / enjoyed the lollypop / walked into another tent / watched two beautiful girls dancing while small percussion band played / talked for hours with complete stranger / hugged complete stranger / gave massage to complete stranger / realised they weren’t complete strangers but just people I hadn’t met before/going back this year.... and probably every year after that.

Title: Kali Baba; Aghori Cannibal of Benaras (2011)
Location: Banks of the River Ganges, Varanasi (Benaras), India.
Photographer: Tim Charody

I had heard tales about the illusive and feared cannibals of Benaras but I never imagined I would ever actually meet one, let alone go on a whisky-fuelled late-night picnic with, and spend much of the night giving drunken relationship advice to one..

But I guess Kali Baba isn't your average, stereo-typical cannibal. Yes he eats human flesh (3 human bodies apparently!), but the bodies he eats are long dead (fished personally out of the river Ganges after being dumped for religious reasons).

Not only that, but to put it simply - he is a really good bloke. In fact, in the two weeks I spent in Varanasi, he was by far the most accommodating, friendly and genuine person I came across. Happy with a cheap bottle of black-market whisky and a few rotten, half-raw chicken legs and a sign-language conversation about a Canadian girl he had fallen in love with.

I suppose the idea of going for a picnic with a cannibal seems pretty bizarre, but to be honest, it only seems weird in hindsight. What was weird was how Kali Baba kept pulling at the skin on my arm and saying the few words he knew in English; "good meat! full power!". But I guess the whisky haze kind of made me numb to any potential risks of becoming dessert.

The 33 year old Kali Baba is a part of the Aghori sect of Hinduism. A small collection of followers who mostly live along the banks of the Ganges River in, or on the outskirts of Varanasi in North Eastern India.

Easily identified by their dark robes and their human-skull bowls which they carry everywhere, the Aghori Sadhus are probably best known for their practice of fishing dead and usually decomposing human bodies out of the River Ganges. Once they have collected a body, the Aghori Sadhu will then meditate on top of it before eating some, or all of its flesh. It is one of the more bizarre and morbid practices I have heard about on my travels, but who am I to judge? They don't actually hurt anyone and many believers will tell you tales of Aghori Sahus past and present who have super-human abilities and can even see deep into the future...

One Sadhu I met in Varanasi explained to me; "If you have a pot of dirt and a beautiful flower growing out of it, which part do you value more; the flower or the dirt?", the answer is obvious, but he went on to say; "if Brahman (the creator) created both the dirt and the flower, how can we say the flower is any better, any more important than the dirt?". It is this ideology that the Aghoris base a lot of their belief system on.

Picnic with a real-life cannibal.... tick!