Banaras Diary,
The city of extremes, either you can hate it or love it, its certainly not for the faint hearted, cosmopolitan bread sensibilities, for the minute you land here you will be shocked out of your guts for the shear madness called Banaras. It’s a city of extremes-extremely crowded, extremely spiritual, extremely talented. Each galli has its own history to tell, the two hundred year old pipul trees standing regaly like old saints looking down on you, with thousands of interesting stories hidden in their broad chests, and you simply wish that you knew "tree language" so then you could sit under it and ask those to be told for they must have been witness to many holy people attaining nirvana sitting under them!
Ummmm, what can I say, where to begin, firstly the sad and the gory part: the filth!! you are hit by it- be it the snake like galis where curious mix smell of dhoop and shit hits your nose and sensibilities with equal ease(just imagine a wincing smiley here) or the curios mix of flowers, diyas, plastic bottle's muck clammering at the bank mixed with slimey green weed. In the entire trip and I was there for complete three days on the ghats I didn't see any police, any administration (BMC) guys managing, policing the place, everything was running "ram bharose" the black smoke spewing steamer boats(fitted with local jugadu engines) were ferrying tourists illegally(yes officialy they are banned) , taxi charging random money and you can imagine it by this: on our way to the hotel on day one we were charged 1000/- bucks however on our way back since it was crowded due to upcoming Shivratri festival no motor vehicles were allowed so one daredevil rickshawwala approached us on his own and decided to take us to railwaystation for hundred bucks and we tipped him happily with extra 50/- bucks(ok you can imagine a happy smilye here)/ the line of "bhakt" waiting to have the darshan at Kashi Vishwanath Mandir was three kilometer long!! Yes sir!! It’s high time that we all give back to that city what we have robbed from it.
Ok..Ok the good part:
The evening aarti on the bank of Ganga, a must watch from the boat, the experience beyond human words, dip in the river cathartic, exploring different galis and its history will transform you in different era, each gali is like a treature cove of amazing stuff, the foreign tourist learning and jamming with the Indian musical instruments. The lack of infrastructure and administration is amply compensated by the city's simple and helping locals, don’t miss the Banaras ka pan and variety of thandais and flavoured lassis and simple mouth watering meal of puri aalo and jalebis(slurp) which (a meal for four)hardly cost less then a big slice of chocolate:)and don’t even bother to have a "chowmein" because it has less of the "chow" and more of the "mean" factor in it! and ofcourse its music, there is talent, music, festivals at the drop of hat happening in every nook and corner you will amazed to see firangis coming from all over the world to learn hindustani classical vocal, totally at ease with the ganja smoking sadhus and as well as the local urchins.
Banaras is stuck somewhere in between a bit to hold on to its heritage, traditions, teachings, values and its struggle to keep up the pace with the rest of the world in the name of progress. But inspite of its shortcomings, it is standing erect with grace, holding on to its bursting seams so bravely with the river Ganga as it's sole witness......................urging appealing silently to world to save it.
Neena wagh