Holy cow!

So these days my aunt has come over to Delhi from the US on work... typical to most people who have stayed in the US for more than 25 yrs, she loves soaking up the religious side of Indian culture when in Delhi.. she does not miss the food, the roads, the shopping, the noise or anything, but loves to dive deep into the realm of the ritualistic heritage of India whenever in town.. in a way whenever she comes, she helps us reconnect with our roots.. which is odd, yet true..

Her unbounded enthusiasm for rejuvenating the spirit and mind brought us all to decide that we go to Banaras for the weekend.. not as a religious yatra, but just to see what Kashi, the holiest, oldest city of India is like... seemed like an adventure, so we were game..

I've been to couple of cities in UP before, like Agra and Lucknow.. but Banaras turned out to be different from both these cities.. I can't say whether in a good or bad way, but definitely different..

Ofcourse the most distinctive feature of Banaras is the ghats.... and I tell you, judging by my two day experience there, its def the best feature as well.. all else is downhill from there.. anyways, the ghats being the trademark of Banaras, they turned out to be as good (or bad, depending on how you look at it) as made out to be in all those travel serials on Star and Discovery! What I found interesting is how organised the place actually is, despite the cluttered and in-shambles look it has! The pandits operate based on clearly defined territories.. there are ghat pandits, kashi vishwanath temple pandits, shamshan ghat pandits etc etc.. all adhering to their marked areas, and all co-operating in bringing each other business! This was apparent when the ghat pandit encouraged us, in more than subtle ways to visit the kashi vishwanath temple as well.. and when we reached there, he promptly handed us over to the temple pandits, and the rest of the while acted as the overseer of the group... One ought to learn "Best Practices in Management" from these guys! Reminded me of the pandits hounding people at the Puri Jagannath temple.. I don't think they were so organised though.. most of the time they were in-fighting on who should take group where!

Much to my chagrin, or embarrasment mostly.. one of the pandits asked me generally if I was married.. on my replying no, they promptly proceeded on showering blessings on me for a good marriage, getting good husband, rich and settled and what not, and wished for me things like "when you come to kashi again, we want to see you with sindoor and your husband" !! Assuming for themselves without any prompting that the only reason why a young unmarried girl would visit a temple is to get herself a good husband!! And ofcourse in return of their (unwanted) blessings, they expected a whole load of cash falling into their hands, and although they were not rude, they were quite vocal if they found the amount meagre (according to their standards).. "Beti, aap to itni badi ikcha poori karne ki maang kar raheen hain, aur badle mein itna thoda bhagwan ko de rahee hain?".. Yeah right! I don't remember praying for a good husband, and 300 Rs is NOT less for anyone! But all the same the whole thing was amusing more than irritating, and I just went with the flow of the things.. walked around a tree, walked around couple of statues couple of times, bowed my head for blessings, rang the temple bell, got the tikka done, ate the parshad, drank the holy water and put it on my head (to find later that my hair felt matted and straw like where the water had touched it!).. all with an amused smile on my face on how strangers were so worried about my marriage whilst my family and I sat back and watched (the money flow)..

Ours is not a traditionally religious family, so this was a bit of a religious revival of sorts.. no point resisting it anyway! :-) The evening aarti was truly nice, though not as good as the one in Rishikesh... after the aarti, we decided to take a late night boat ride, and guess where the boatman takes us first? To the "24*7 shamshaan ghat"! Ummm.. no, I don't want to go.. so my bro and I decided to sit this one out while my mom and aunt decided to get a closer look! I mean, with due respect to the departed souls, watching bodies burning was not a touristy, or religious thing for us! So we both sat back and contemplated on life.. in other words, took snaps and watched someone shaving his head on the banks of the river..

I have got to say though that watching the sunrise while sitting in a boat at 6 in the morning, with people I love, was one of the nicest and most sublime moments (of the trip, of my life, of something, I cant really say).. ofcourse the spell was broken, or maybe added to the uniqueness of the experience, whne we turned around to look at the ghats and found innumerable people in different stages of undress, taking dips and swimming and praying in the waters... the spell was def broken when we realised how dirty the water was on the ghats side, so we had the boatman take us to the other bank, which was relatively cleaner and less crowded.. you know, now I know why they say your sins will be washed off if you take a dip in the Ganga.. ummm.. coz the water is so cold and its such a torture, that you beg God to spare you and promise never to do a bad thing in your life again, if this is the course for repentence!

There is a lot more to say about Banaras, like the traffic which consists of scooterists, rickshaws, cycles and autos only (mainly), and no one follows any rules and where "everything misses everything else by centimetres" (in the words of my wise brother!).. the fact that the jalebis there were one of the best I have ever tasted.. that there is just so much dust that I sneezed the whole time I was in the city.. that its damn difficult to understand what the paan-eating junta there is saying, that the rickshaws are SO cheap, you feel guilty giving them so little... and there are no good banarasi saree shops in banaras! But I'm going to stop..

Usually, at the end of my posts a song comes to my head... and I quote it.. this time, only the temple and aarti bells ringing early morning at 6 on the Ganges comes to my mind..