Dying to get to Varanasi

For me, travelling is a chance to expose myself - to a new and random set of research topics arising from beautiful sights around the world.  A great question may spring to mind from the plane I board, the city I visit, or any sight, sound, smell, taste or touch .
The Ghandi quote on a school gate in Darjeeling expressed it eloquently: "Live as if you are to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

I have often joked that my ambition is to be a corpse with the most complete cosmic perspective I can manage.

Here in Varanasi, as I watch the legs drop of a burning corpse at Manikarnika Ghat, I wonder what the perspective of the dead person was.

We, in Australia, tend to burn corpses as well, but just not so primitively, not amongst filth, or in front of strangers.
And yet, as I watched, the spectacle did evoke a sense of calm acceptance at the thought of my own death. Perhaps it was the very everyday workmanlike approach that seemed to rob death of its horror.
The burners allocate just enough wood to reduce the body to ash and charge by weight and species (sandalwood is more expensive).
They tend the fire, returning those feet to the centre so that the job is completed in a couple of hours and the next cremation can start.
Aside from the bonfires, Varanasi, like Kolkata, has a large number of dirty decaying husks of grand buildings, many seemingly left vacant even in this crowded city. All significant ancient Hindu buildings were destroyed by Islamic fanatics: Qutb-ud-din Aibak in 1194, Feroz Shah in 1376, and Aurangzeb in 1656 (it must be said that the muslims also built a lot of superb Islamic buildings and forts that feature on our itinerary elsewhere in India).
Varanasi is achieving its purpose by generating lots of interesting research questions. Nevertheless, I wonder if I could have achieved the same result in a place that has at least a little inherent beauty.