Note: I labeled different chapters of this article (just in case its too long) but here ya go:

In December of 2016, I decided to visit the City of Varanasi, the holiest city in India. I've wanted to visit this city for multiple reasons, but the main reason was to find the Aghori Sadhus, one of the last cannibal tribes in the world. (sorry, mom)

The Aghori Sadhus are the people of an ancient religious sect that has existed for centuries - these people caught my attention after I watched documentaries and read articles about them - and being a person with a strong desire to indulge myself in the rarest situations, I decided to visit Varanasi and document my experience there by making a movie while attempting to understand the ways of the Aghori.

Arriving in Varanasi

Varanasi is known to be the holiest city in Hinduism I made my way to the Ganges River, the holiest river in hinduism and one of the main landmarks in Varanasi. Getting there, I walked through the tiniest alleyways, having to stop sometimes and make way for cows or people pushing huge loads of wood.
As I got to the Ganges, I immediately realized how special this river is to the people living in the city as well as the people visiting. There was so much happening at the river banks from festivities and children playing around to bodies being cremated and families grieving for their loved ones..

I took my time to explore the city and get to know this explosion of beautiful culture, so as people usually do, I decided to go on a boat ride to see the cremation ground from the river.
It’s said that a dead human’s soul can find salvation when cremated in Varanasi. Cremation in Varanasi is a public ceremony that takes places along the Ghats. Many Hindus come to the city awaiting their death, there’s even one hotel in Varanasi called the Mukti Bhavan, famous for taking people in that are waiting to part this life and find salvation or as they call it, “Moksha”.

*Brahmin Priests performing “Ganga Aarti”, a ceremony that happens right before sunrise and after sunset*

Meeting the first Aghori

After a few days of being exposed to the cultural explosion and exploring temples, food, making friends and attending some Ganga Aarti rituals, I decided it was time to go search for Aghori Sadhus.

My first stop was the big cremation ground “Manikarnika Ghat” I was told by some locals that I would definitely find Aghori out there, especially in the night time, and so I gave it a shot, I waited till night time and headed to the Ghat.

I sat there for hours observing, quietly and talked to locals whenever they approached me asking “What are you doing here?”.

Hours later, a man in his early 40s came over and asked the same question “What are you doing here?” I told him I was looking for Aghori Sadhus and was hoping to meet and talk to someone who followed that specific sect. He didn’t speak very good english but he was able to explain that there’s a man living across the river, he pointed at this make-shift Ashram and told me they called that man the Black Sadhu. I look across the river, it’s pitch black, I can hear dogs barking and see a small fire right outside that tent he pointed at. Apparently this man had already made the decision for me, he got me a boatman and made a deal that I’d pay him (I think it was 200 rupees to get across and back).

I hesitated at first but then thought, ‘well this is what I’m here for - I should go for it’.. So we made the deal then I got on the boat with two men that didn’t speak a word of english.

I’m getting more and more nervous as we approach the other side of the river, but I try to get my shit together to look as confident as possible when I meet a cannibal —

We finally make it, I get off the boat and the boatman points at this tent, telling me to go, and I point at myself, him and the other man on the boat then point at the tent - trying to tell him we’re all going.

He gets off his boat and storms into the tent, shouting a man’s name “Amar, Amar” and I was right behind him slowly following him into the tent wondering who sits inside. As I step inside, I hear a voice say “ Welcome friend” and I look around and see people sitting around a fire inside a dark, quiet tent, the piece of wood holding the top of the tent had a chain of skulls hanging on it, right by the fire. I noticed someone in black got up and moved trying to hide in the dark as I walked inside.

Further inside sat a man on a higher platform, I could tell that he was the Aghori.

I was asked to take my shoes off and turn the camera off, so I did that. Amar invited me to sit next to him and we had a long conversation about what I was there for, spirituality, what Aghori means and finally the idea of me filming them.

The other person in the tent that I assume was trying to hide their face from my camera turned out to be a Russian woman in here 40s, following the Aghori ways. Her and Amar were the only two that spoke any english in that tent so I was talking to them mainly. Everyone else was mostly silent, staring into the fire.

I asked the Russian woman what she was doing there and she said “I’ve died and was reborn here”… Now that I think of it, I think she was referring to reincarnation but in the moment I just thought she was a woman who was brainwashed by the Aghori.

The main question in my head was: “Do you guys eat human flesh?” I wanted to see but I also didn’t. I asked Amar and the Russian woman the question, in an indirect way “What kind of rituals do you guys do?” they said, sometimes we offer a sacrifice to our God, some other times we pray in other forms — i then asked, “What do you sacrifice?” That’s the Amar told me that it’s a daily ritual for them to make an offering at midnight, and he said “You can wait and see for yourself”.

After talking to them for about an hour, my boatman wanted to head back to the main Ghat and so he asked Amar if I was planning to stay or join him on the boat ride back - I refused Amar’s invitation to stay for the ritual and went back to the main Ghat. Mainly because I didn’t feel like they wanted me there + I felt that they were going to scam me later in the night, although they didn’t ask me for anything this whole time.

So we got back on the boat and left for the main Ghat again. I went to get my bear shaved and returned to my hostel for a good night sleep.

I went out first thing in the morning, walking around the Ghats, when I was invited to have some coffee with a man dressed in orange pilgrim clothes

Baba Swayumbha, a follower of the Sannyasi sect

I didn’t know much about identifying different religious sects so I just assumed anyone who stood out, with ash or paint on their face could be Aghori. We had a long chat, but the main question in my head was ‘do you follow Aghori ways and do you know this man across the river in that tent?’
I let the conversation flow organically - he started asking me if i liked India and how peaceful it is, then he started telling me about his sect, called ‘Sannyasi’ and how he quit his job in Engineering to become a wandering monk, mostly living around the Ganges River. Fascinating!

I asked if he knew the man across the river who follows the Aghori ways, he said “I don’t like this man, he eats man meat”.

There was my confirmation, I had finally met the people known for their cannibalistic rituals. Not only that, but I also sat with them in the middle of nowhere right before their ceremonies took place.

After taking about an hour of this peaceful man’s time, then moved on to keep on exploring the city.

I kept on walking around the city and meeting people. Later that night, I went back on my daily routine, walking by the ghats, looking for aghori - I saw this man kicking a ball at a wall so i decided to join him for a little bit. As we passed the ball, we got to talk - his name was Michael, he of course asked me what i was doing in India and why I was out so late, when I told him about my Aghori search, he told me that he worked as a fixer for documentary filmmakers before and would be happy to help me — my jaw dropped and I couldn’t believe how the dice changes. After half an hour or so of playing soccer, we headed off to the main ghat, Michael said he knew a Aghori Sadhu who lived in one of the Ashrams there. We looked briefly but Michael said he wasn’t there and so we agreed to start again first thing in the morning.

Finding Baba Mahesh

First thing I did the next day was go fetch Michael and have some breakfast. One thing you need to know about finding Aghori is that you will encounter lots of people claiming to be Aghori while they actually are not — they just claim to be so you can donate some money and take pictures with people covered in ash (the typical sadhu look) in fact what I learned from my research then confirmed by the locals is that Aghori are hard to find - they actually don’t want to be found, they are so focused on their worship and devotion to Shiva. I asked Michael whether the Aghori he knew was faking it, he said he didn’t know so I kinda felt like I might be wasting my time with him but there weren't that many choices, plus he spoke perfect Hindi and English which was a huge advantage for me.

We headed out hoping to somehow bump into a real Aghori. After walking back and forth and Michael talking to one of the well decorated pretentious Sadhus, who offered to eat human flesh on camera for a large amount of money and I kept on refusing to just do this for the looks of it, I wanted to meet someone we truly believed in their faith.

Close to the main ghat, there were a few pilgrims sitting on the side of the road and I noticed someone wearing a lot of rudras and had a trishula. I asked Michael if he thought this guy was Aghori. He said he’d go and check so he went and paid his respects to this man and started speaking to him, this man was Baba Mahesh, who was the guru of the other pilgrims, they were following him around, to learn and pray with him.

I asked Baba Mahesh if he would be willing to talk to us for a little bit later that day and he agreed so a few hours later we picked him up and got on a boat in the Ganges River.

We were still uncertain what Baba Mahesh was like, I was kinda spooked out the whole time sitting in a boat with a cannibal but I started realizing that Baba Mahesh was kinda cool, he smoked his chillum and told us his story of how he was born in Delhi and decided to devote his life and soul to Aghora. Mahesh answered all my questions, about Aghori and eating human flesh for religious reason (apparently, this is to save someone else’s soul) but the funny thing is that he was answering in the form of giving me life advice, as if I was asking him these question to become Aghori myself. :)

You can see the whole interview by watching the full film below.

We spent a few hours on the boat with him until it got dark. I was still kind of suspicious whether he truly was aghori or not but.. I guess only Shiva knows.

I wanted to spend more time with Baba mahesh and so I asked if he would be up for another boat ride the next day and he was pretty happy to spend more time with us.

The next morning we took off on the boat and went to the other side of the river at around 9am. All of a sudden a man wearing a turban showed up out of nowhere and walked in frame, he introduced himself and joined our setting - his name was Baba Bootnath. He told Michael that he was also an Aghori and he pulled out a few photos of him covered in ash. It was petty obvious that he was trying to commercialize his faith. But to me it was interesting to see the two men sitting next to each other, one not trying to prove anything and the other working so hard to get attention.

After we wrapped up with Baba Mahesh, I dropped him off at the main ghat where we had first met, I decided I wanted to donate some money since he was so generous and patient. He was also technically a homeless man, relying on people’s generosity.

I’m happy got this experience and was able to make into a film, I learned a lot from my time with Baba Mahesh about aghora and what it’s really like to devote your life to your God.

It amazes me how religion was able to let so many people give up all their belongings, move on from their lives with their loved ones.

Here’s the full movie, enjoy.