In pictures: India's ancient city of Varanasi

Thousands of pilgrims come every day to take a dip in India's holiest river, the Ganges, which runs past the city. The river water is heavily polluted as domestic sewage from the city flows into the river through 33 drains every day.

Tulsi Ghat is one of the 80 ghats lining the Ganges in Varanasi - many with elaborate temples or palaces. A ghat means a series of steps going down to the water.

Almost all the ghats are used for bathing, the steps allowing pilgrims to stand on them to wash in the holy waters.

Hindus believe that if a person is cremated in Varanasi, or the ashes of the dead are scattered in the river here, the deceased will achieve release from sufferings of the cycle of birth and death.

Manikarnika Ghat is one among the two which specialise in the business of human cremation.

People bring their dead here because Manikarnika is reckoned to be the most auspicious place on earth for a Hindu to be cremated.

Time stands still in the narrow and winding lanes of the spiritual city where pilgrims come from all over India for peace.

The city has long been a draw for foreign visitors too - French observer Francois Bernier called Varanasi "the Athens of the East" for its giddy confluence of ideas.

But Varanasi is on the verge of civic ruin with potholed roads, gridlocked traffic, choked drains, mountains of garbage and little water.

Here, cows amble on the river bank and city streets.

In May, Varanasi awoke from its reverie and become a noisy battleground for the 2014 election's biggest slugfest - a contest between Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist BJP and Arvind Kejriwal, leading anti-corruption campaigner and leader of the Aam Aadmi Party. Mr Modi won the election and led his government to power in Delhi.

Mr Modi has pledged to clean up the Ganges and the city.