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A busy riverside cremation ghat in Varanasi with a crowd of many people gathered on stone steps and platforms. Stacked firewood piles stand in the centre, and smoke rises from a pyre at left. Several men in white dhotis and cloth wraps walk among the crowd, and a black water buffalo stands near the right-hand steps. Ornate temple spires with red and white carved shikhara towers rise above the ghat, with saffron-coloured flags on tall poles at right. Bamboo railings, a blue-and-white tarpaulin canopy and scattered debris fill the foreground.