Gumbo’s Pic of the Day, July 25, 2014: The fortune teller of Varanasi, India

Dressed in the white cloth of mourning and with a shaven head, this young man has just prepared the funeral pyre for a member of his family, hopefully old and well blessed after a long and fruitful life. As part of the traditional ceremonies he has to see what the future will hold and for this he consults a fortune teller. After ritual cleansing, seated and kneeling by the muddy and debris strewn banks of the Ganges they carefully examine the fortune teller’s markers so as to divine the will of the Gods in the coming year.

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