.... Continued from North India Part IV: Allahabad and Lucknow)
I reached Varanasi at 6 am in the morning and checked in at Shree Ganesha Palace, a large haveli converted to a hotel. It was a calm, clean oasis in the midst of the chaos of the city.
It's difficult to describe what I feel about Kashi. I don't think anyone can sit on the fence about this place. If you are a believer, it's the gateway to heaven. If not, you might be driven away by it's pollution. Being an atheist the place has no religious significance for me, but that it does for a billion people plays on my mind. The place is unique and evocative. The morning rays lighting the steep ghats and the umbrellas providing respite from the afternoon heat, the mighty Ganga flowing majestically eastward and the devotees washing away their sins, the revered cows walking about and the sadhus contorting their supple bodies, the chaos at Kashi Vishwanath temple and the playful monkeys in its compound, the glory of the morning Aarti and the chanting of sacred hymns. Above all else, equally appealing to people of all faiths, is the fabulous street food probably as good as any in the country. But there is also the filth - it won't be an overstatement to say that the holiest city of India is also it's dirtiest. Sadhus and commoners relieving themselves on the ghat is a common site. There are dustbins around but no one seems to try to look for them. People don't tire of mentioning that nectar flows in the Ganga while releasing the worst effluents in enormous quantities. Some of the ghats are an absolute eyesore. It's a polarizing place like no other I have seen, and if the mess is cleaned up, it can be an attractive place like no other.
For breakfast, I headed to Ram Bhandar in Thateri bazaar to have it's famous kachori, and did the place live up to it's expectations! There were two varieties of them, stuffed round and crispy flat, both served with aloo bhaji. I tried one of each and they were a cut above any kachori I've ever had. I also tried some jalebis, which were so much better than the best of them back in Bombay.
After taking care of my hunger, I headed to the Kashi Vishwanath temple. I had already left my camera and phone in the hotel room - here I was asked to deposit even a pen I was carrying. There was a queue of about 45 minutes to reach the inner sanctum of the temple, and during the wait, I had the pleasure of standing right under a monkey as he took a leak. I just may be the only person in the world who has been pissed on by both a monkey and believe it or not, a lion. Having a somewhat wet t-shirt wasn’t my biggest concern while in line - some of the corridors of the temple were so dirty I wanted to turn back and leave. One woman aggressively berated a couple of men for jumping a few spaces in the queue. I was irritated at both parties: the men for obvious reasons and at her for choosing to use profane language at a sacred place.
For a trip to Varanasi to be complete from the religious perspective, one is expected to visit both the Kashi Vishwanath temple and the Kaal Bhairon temple nearby. I skipped the latter, and headed to the Dasaswamedh ghat, overflowing with priests, ascetics, devotees, vendors, boatmen and cows. I hopped on to a boat headed to the opposite bank. During the 10 minute ride, the boatman was moaning about how politicians have been promising for decades to clean up the Ganga, but no action has been taken. At the opposite bank, he asked all passengers to leave their footwear in the boat, presumably to ensure they didn’t return using a different boat. When I decided to keep mine on and remarked that there was a lot of garbage on the sand bank, he remarked that the garbage was in my mind and the place was absolutely clean! To make the irony starker, I noticed a sadhu taking a crap in the distance as I got off the boat.
All the activity at Varanasi is only along one bank: the opposite bank has a huge expanse of sand submerged during the monsoons, and some sparsely populated villages beyond the high water mark. Some of the passengers took a holy dip in the Ganga waters, while the rest of us strolled around for a while. I was hungry by the time I returned back to the business side of the river, and of all things on offer, decided to have some dosas. It was a real surprise to realize how much the locals loved South Indian food: every block in the city had a vendor selling dosas, vadas and idlis. And stalls peddling momos were ubiquitous too.
In the late afternoon, I took a cycle rickshaw to Kriti Gallery, well known for its support of local artists. The trip was fruitless as there were no exhibitions going on. I proceeded on to Sant Ravidas ghat, one of the far flung ghats, where the Ganga Mahotsav, a 3 day classical dance and music fest was going on. The front section were for VIPs and those holding passes, but white-skinned people could also enter that area. I requested the ushers for front access, stating that I had come from Mumbai and that there was too much chatter at the back to enjoy the music, and with some hesitation they obliged. Rakesh Chaurasiya gave a nice flute performance, but his rendition was clashing with an aarti performed by a group of devotees on the adjoining riverbank. The stage was abuzz with moths and mosquitoes, leading him to remark that he had his evening snack during the performance itself. Next up was a Bharatnatyam performance by Sushila Mehta, which was good, followed by an Odissi dance by another artist that was quite boring. Thereafter Kavita Seth mesmerized everyone for an hour, starting with a couple of her sufi compositions, followed by the film numbers she sang in "Rajneeti" and "Wake Up Sid" and ending with a medley of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's classics.
There was a Marathi Lavani dance to follow, but it was getting late and I wanted to catch some sleep before waking up at 5 am the next morning to head to Assi Ghat for it's Subah-E-Benaras program. It started with an enchanting Aarti and a shehnai performance followed. There was to be a yoga session later as well, but after the fiasco in Pushkar, I did not wait for it and decided to walk towards Dasaswamedh ghat, and take some snaps along the way.
I wanted to click the sadhus and priests. One priest was busy chanting verses and I clicked him with some graffiti in the background. I tried to snap a sadhu who seemed to be lost in contemplation, but he objected the moment I pointed the camera at him. The next sadhu I saw, I first took his blessings and made a dakshina of 10 rupees. He gave a few nice poses. As I thanked him, he requested me to send my friends his way too, indicating that it would be beneficial for everyone. At the next ghat, a couple of sadhus, naked except the tiniest of langots, were hanging out with a gang of hippies atop a water tank. One of them was performing yoga, while the other one was having a smoke with the gang.
En route, a short detour took me to the birthplace of Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, where a statue of hers riding her horse and brandishing a sword has been erected in her memory. Varanasi is also of religious importance to Jains, and is considered the birthplace of a few tirthankaras. I visited a temple at the site considered to be the birthplace of Suparsvanath, the seventh of the 24th tirthankaras.
One of the ghats I passed was the Harishchandra ghat, where dead bodies were being cremated. Clothes were being washed and laid out to dry at one of the other ghats. I am not sure I could wear anything that was washed in those waters.
After strolling about and taking many pictures, I had a breakfast of medu vada and headed to the hotel to take a nap. I checked out around noon, left my bags in the cloak room and took a cycle rickshaw to Sarnath, the place where the Buddha is supposed to have preached his first sermon. Sarnath was an oasis of peace compared to the chaos of Varanasi and its surroundings. Its public washrooms were the cleanest I had seen in the past ten days. The 100+ feet Dhameka stupa, an Ashokan pillar and a museum housing the lion capital of the pillar were the highlights. In the surroundings were modern Buddhist temples built in Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, Burmese and Thai styles, and a Jain temple at the birthplace of the 11th tirthankara, Shreyansnath.
On the ride back to Varanasi, the rickshaw driver started talking about some trivia - for instance, Varanasi got its name as it is situation between the small Varuna and Assi rivers flowing into the Ganga. Thereafter he mentioned that Varanasi was famous for two things: one, the paan and two, the silk. A lightbulb went off in my head then. When we had set off from the hotel, the rick driver had mentioned that he will also show me Mughal Town on the way back. I had presumed it was a place with some old monuments, but now realized that it was probably the area with silk factories. He then proceeded to mention the benefits of shopping for silk directly from the factories. I insisted that I was getting late, which I indeed was, and did not want to see any workshops. He was miffed at me, and started complaining about how little I was paying him for taking up his entire afternoon. I put my foot down and asked him to take me straight back to the departure point, whence he started pedaling like a lunatic. I paid him a little more than agreed before, but still less than what he asked for and made it clear that I did not appreciate being taken around for these shopping trips.
In the evening I went back to the Mahotsav venue. The Governor of Uttar Pradesh was the chief guest that evening. An enthralling sitar performance by Niladri Kumar kickstarted the evening and was followed by a captivating rendition of folk singing by Malini Awasthi. I so wanted to hang around till late and enjoy Parveen Sultana's classical singing, but it was time to head to the station for my return journey back home.
I boarded the Patna Rajdhani heading to Delhi from Mughalsarai Junction, some 20 km away from Varanasi. There was no habitation around the station it seemed to exist only because the Varanasi station couldn’t support the high traffic of trains in the area.
The scheduled arrival time at New Delhi station was 7:40 am, and I had a connecting flight to Mumbai at 11:35 am. Being well aware of the tardiness of Indian Railways, I had chosen the Rajdhani and kept a margin of error of 2 hours. I tracked the train's timeliness over the few days I was on the road, and it wasn’t more than 1.5 hours late on any of these days. But as luck would have it, it ambled into New Delhi station at 10:10 am, 2.5 hours late. Taking the airport express metro was no longer an option - the ride to Aerocity and the transfer to Terminal 1C would take about an hour. The only option was to take a cab, and push the driver to rush as fast as he could. I was in a cab at 10:20 and promised the guy an extra 100 bucks if he got me to the airport in 25 mins. I had been complaining about rash drivers throughout my trip, but I really needed one then. Instead, I got a slowpoke. But I made it to the airport in 25 minutes, as the Guru Nanak Jayanti holiday meant Delhi roads were uncharacteristically empty. I rushed to the check-in counter and was told the flight was closed. I entreated that I had already checked-in and only needed to drop my bag, and my request was granted. It was exactly 45 minutes to departure time! A few more minutes late, and I’d have to cough up 18k for a last-minute one way ticket to Mumbai, three times what I had paid for my return ticket booked well in advance!
A few days before the trip started, I had begin to wonder whether it was a silly undertaking. One friend mentioned Pushkar was overflowing with camel shit and another spoke about Varanasi’s unbearable filth. I wondered if I should have gone abroad to an exotic location, or gone diving or trekking. Perhaps I should have stayed home and read some good books. But thankfully, I went ahead with it, and stuck to it even as the start of the trip was below par. Travel tends to be most rewarding when one has few expectations. In hindsight, I wouldn’t swap this trip with any other.
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