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| Ganga from Assi Ghat @5.30AM |
Yes, that is the realization
at the end of the journey- the more things change, the more they remain the
same. No amount of turbulence all around can change the basics. It’s so true of
people and also for places. At least for places, which have seen a lot of
changes over the centuries. No wonder it applied to the oldest living city of
the world.
Looking back, I wonder why I was expecting that it will change
at all. A city which continues to be what it is for centuries-unaware of people
who come here, people who patronize it, who destroy it …people who love it and
hate it for almost similar reasons. Why was I expecting, it might have changed
in last 15-20 years? May be because even then, the squalor and garbage, the
broken roads and unruly traffic made me uneasy. I last visited Varanasi as a schoolgirl.
I loved the city, its old charming ways –
its narrow lanes, its traditional eateries and of course the river. Back then,
I found the nearby Buddhist pilgrimage Sarnath straight out of my history books.
It was in Sarnath that I first experienced how powerful would have been the
faith preached by Buddha that it broke the centuries old customs of Hinduism in
the 6th century BC. In Sarnath, during my last visit, I was amazed
to see the spread of Buddha’s dhamma across the world and how it ties the
citizens of different countries beyond language and politics. I was also very
envious of the students of BHU, the sprawling university campus and the
unmatched courses on offer.
Then in last
20 years I changed. My gaze changed as well. Now when I looked at the dirty
lanes of Banaras, I thought of lanes in historical part of the Rome and
compared the two. The two eternal cities – which continued in all times of History,
so similar in this aspect and so contrasting in all others. While in Rome there
was a constant awareness of the historical context of the place, here it was blissful
ignorance. Even the government notice boards and pamphlets do not speak the
facts – but merely state the folklore, the “belief” associated with the place.
While in Rome even the smallest and most ordinary of churches were very clean,
in Banaras even the holiest of all temple, the Kashi Vishwanath temple needed
some real faith to ignore the stench and dirt around it. Though I am not a
religious person as such, I did not even feel moved at the sight of the
temples. But then, temples were in any case not the most favourite sight in the
city for me.
The early
morning boat ride was the best remembered part in my memories for Banaras. So
we went again for it. The sky was full of monsoon clouds and the river was
swelling with flood water from Nepal. The ghats, very uncharacteristically were
almost barren. The life of the city, however, slowly started to appear. Priests
and foreign tourists, local people and devotees from outside, cows and stray
dogs, flower sellers and boatmen…slowly they all took their places on the Ghats.
It was from the ghats that we saw the swamp of foreign tourist gathered with
their cameras at Manikarnika Ghat to see the cremation as per Hindu rites. For my mind, it was a very disturbing fact
that death too can be a tourist sight! But apparently in the age of reality TV,
all emotions attract our curiosity- even the most tragic ones. We wondered
about the centuries of history appearing in the names of the ghats and also the
naïve ignorance of people. There is something special about the place –
something very real and important, but somehow, I had lost the innocent eyes of
a child to admire that.
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| On the Ghats of Ganga |
Ramnagar fort and the mysterious fort of Chunar, both places have
definitely lost their grandeur and charm. Badly encroached and mindlessly maintained
by insensitive government organizations, they no longer remind one about the
days gone by. The stories of prince and princesses, spies and romance as
narrated by Devaki Nandan Khatri in his ‘Chandrakanta’ seem very remote to the
present structures.
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| Chunar Fort |
Is it simply our ignorance about our history or our
disinterest in anything beyond basic needs that can make people use a
beautifully located British cemetery as a garbage dump? Even the royal carriages of King of Kashi,
used for the annual Ramlila look so ill kept and unimpressive. All along the
overpowering thought was about the people visiting the place from other
countries. Would they be able to sail through the complicated and tricky
madness of the city to find some greater meaning in all this? I am somewhat
doubtful of that!
Sarnath, unlike Banaras was clean and serene. Through very deficient in terms of facilities
and infrastructure, at least the place looked holy and inviting. It was, in fact,
in Sarnath that I realized the answer to my disquiet about Banaras. It was in
fact foolish of me to think that anything will change in the eternal city. Even
with the new swanky shopping malls selling McDonalds burgers and western-style bakeries,
the city will remain the same. It may be the world’s most un-hygienic holy place
but it is also one of the most sought after. The city perhaps breaths with
faith and not the polluted air. One can never judge this place at a material
level. As a philosophical capital of India, the only way one can see and
appreciate Varanasi is philosophically. Probably the groups of Sri Lankan and
Thai tourists, with folded hands and whisper-like chants of mantras, got this
from the beginning. And that is why perhaps, near the dilapidated Ramnagar fort
and the ill maintained Chunar fort, the dirty, crowded ghats and just behind
the snakelike lanes, with all the pollution and garbage, quiet flows the Ganges.
