Benaras: the Ageless

Benaras:The ageless

“The river of life just keeps flowing, from the mountains through the great lengths of this land and all around it, life has past by, living as it were in paradise…it spread the wisdom and the glory that souls must unite, river of life has just kept flowing, gathering at its banks the sands of time…river of life’s eternal journey will tell the tale of this great land…” , these infamous verses by the urban folk singer, Sushmit Bose, were companion to some blessed moments of reflection during a journey to a city that has inspired many to take dips in to the deep spiritual spaces within…evoking ripples of never forgetting reflections.

As I left for the mystic ‘sacred soil’ of Benaras, as some people fancy, my unabated train Kashi Vishwanath Express slogged through every station in between, making the first ever journey to the ‘holy city’, a series of snapshots. Weighing upon my lower berth, peeping through the train window, which I always fancied as nothing less than a kaleidoscope’s eye, I wondered if these snapshots would only be a space in my memory closet or their sight will soothe my eyes yet again. The wonder had more to do with my aspired admission in the master degree course in Mass Communication from Banaras Hindu University. If the counseling leads to the final admission, it would mean traveling regularly now and then through those snapshots of open fields bowing and waving at my arrival, erect windmills saluting the impeccable and notorious wind, mango trees overwhelmed with their first flowers of the season and strange ravaged houses leaving mysterious impressions of even stranger associations and affinities. Bose’s songs transcended to those snapshots with baffling readiness; they are by my side every time I travel (especially during those train journeys when I travel through my spiritual space miles more than I travel physically). As I proceeded to reach my destination, all this reflection became a prelude to prepare me for what was to come ahead!

Reaching the station, I was reminded of the city nooks informally colored in red by the city pampered pan lovers, who are as easy to spot in Benaras as it is to spot folk singers in Rajasthan or Sardars in Punjab! I planed to spend my first evening at the ghat Assi after a brief rest in my hotel room. Assi, as the name suggests is the 80th ghat of Benaras and lends its name to the city’s new name, ‘Varanasi’, with an array of steps and boats lined up along the riverside. It was quieter than I imagined it to be, for it faced the river like a child facing an adult with a blank look. I took a hand full of irresistible ‘Banarsi jalebi’ and sailed into the Ganges alongside all those ghats, which have been a witness to the river’s moods and appearances over times immemorial. As evening broke free, the golden-mustard river infected by the setting sun was preparing to get even quieter and serene as soon as the sun would betray her. For she seemed like a to-be abandoned lover, who becomes even more fascinating and charming in a flux of heartbreak. Unknowingly intoxicating with her mourning state, she seemed more unattainable and mysterious than ever. I have been in awe of her ever since then, because she was one of the first to speak to me even when I was a complete stranger to the town.

The next day we thought of having an experience of the nerve of the city life. We set out in to the bazaars and mohallas. The beatific faces…old and young intrigue you amongst the chaos and hullabaloo of the city life, which you soon realize is breathing noisy peace. The red-mustard Tilak on these beatific faces color your first thoughts as an outsider, and so you say, that’s a city of morning prayers. Strolling through the much talked about snake like narrow galis (lanes) of this mystic city, I was in awe of the irony that resides here. Its legacy of old way of life in its aging semi-ravaged traditional houses, mandirs, masjids, dargaahs, age old shops of sunars, darzis and banarsi bunkers with their kalakari on display are all yours to make for a whole new experience, few among the several motifs of the past era, leaving you with an open mouth in a look of disbelief! Nothing seems to have changed here, and this is what makes Benaras ageless, becoming the ancestor itself, even as it is referred to as the ‘oldest city’. The terms like antique and old are connotations of outsiders who compare it with the modern times and hence give it ‘old times’ terminology. However, for the people who have had all their generations’ right here or the ones who are in awe of the soul more than the skin, this city insists to be called ‘ageless’. A city that has not just resisted time but has freezed it to be part of the same picture over the ages…but as Pamuk says in his transcendentally evocative memoir ‘Istanbul’ reminding us of John Ruskin’s ‘The Seven Lamps of Architecture’ , which says that picturesque beauty rises out of details that emerge only after the building has been standing for hundred of years, from the ivy, from the herbs and grassy meadows that surrounded it…it only becomes beautiful when history endows it with accidental beauty and grants fortuitous new perspective. Though I read these lines much later than this visit, I felt just the same, strolling through the ravaged abandoned structures, old mandirs adorned with tulsi leaves and old dargahs brightened with diyas, forlorn lanes, moss green colored shops with dilapidated paint, workaholic wooden boats and particularly the steps summoning the ‘river of life’...it seems that the sheer time lapse of ages made them come out in full vigor…never foreseen by their makers. Banaras, is indeed a city carved in the factory of ‘passage of time’ itself.