DAILY STAR
On the banks of India’s most sacred river lives a man who eats the bodies of the dead and drinks booze out of their skulls.
Baba is a member of the Aghori sect, a bizarre religious group which seeks to free mankind of the ‘bonds’ of modern life. He lives in the city of Varanasi, on the banks of the river Ganges. It’s sometimes called the ‘City of Death’ because Hindu worshippers bring the bodies of their dead relatives to the river and cremate them, before scattering their ashes in the river’s holy waters.
Baba and his fellow Aghori gather up the ashes and smear them on their bodies. They are also known to collect body parts that have escaped cremation and eat them, a ritual that is connected to their belief that reality is an illusion. Aghori will also eat and drink faeces and urine taken from dead bodies.
Adventurer Drew Binsky travelled to Varanasi to meet Babu and find out about his bizarre lifestyle. At one point Drew ventured out onto the river in a small boat, while Babu chanted beside him in some long-forgotten language and waved a rusty, but deadly-looking sword.
“I felt a little nervous to be isolated on a boat with a cannibal,” he said. “What if something goes wrong?” Babu handed Drew a small skull, probably taken from at the body of a child, before smearing wet ashes on his forehead.
“What the hell is he doing?” Drew asked. “I’ve never held a human skull before, this is insane. I don’t know how I what to think or what to feel. they just cover their faces in ashes and now my face is covered in ashes.”
