All Things Considered

When I ask the roly-poly guest house manager on interesting ideas to explore – a term we travel aficionados particularly like - the ghat area, I’m instantaneously inducted into the mythological mind scape of a Banarasi. ‘All ghats on the Ganges are equal. But, some ghats are more equal than the others’, he declares like a George Orwell. What gives those handful of ghats their elevated status is the PanchaTirta Yatra. The yatra is a visit to a series of five ghats undertaken in a certain order , an order that is counter-intuitive , since one has to skip a few ghats that lie on the route only to backtrack to it at a later point in the sequence. But , lo and behold, the yatra is the Ultimate Sin Destroyer and is a guaranteed pass to the world beyond. But if you are a lesser mortal ,like a backpacker for instance, you can exercise the option of walking from one ghat to the next in sequence, like sane people do.

 

Around 5AM. The call for the first prayer at the JnanaVapi Mosque (And I’m skipping the irony talk on nomenclature here) and the chants from the morning puja at the temple are both relayed to the ears by the loudspeakers. This acoustic resonance hits harder on cold mornings. Even in this early morning zombie state, Rubens Tube comes to mind. It is still dark and I fumble down the double flight of stairs at Dasashwamedh Ghat. Despite the hour, there is significant activity at the ghats. No, ‘Despite’ is not the word,I’m told. ‘Because’ is. Early mornings are auspicious.

 

Auspicious or not, the riverside is definitely more atmospheric in this semi-darkness. The godmen start to arrive in their groups, chanting, singing and dancing. Each group has a flag of it’s own, a handful of drum-beaters and conch-blowers. Some even have a cymbal-clasher. The mahant ,the main baba, is easy to spot. He is the cliched mental picture that the word invokes: Loin-clothed and wearing a sacred thread across, with thick matted hair and ash smeared body, he carries a pole in his hand. (Also usually has the most aggressive facial expression in the group). They arrive in groups and take their respective places on the ghat-side. If you are into this business of salvation, the ghat side at Varanasi must make for an excellent location in terms of proximity to clientele. Not to mention that it must also make an excellent ground for recruitment and induction of financially well-situated international travelers in pursuit of salvation. Alm-seekers take up positions on the ghat steps. As do the flower sellers. But the massage specialists will have to wait until the morning arti and puja are done before they set-up shop.

 

As the sun rises on the opposite bank, the arti commences at Prayag Ghat. The Brahmins busy themselves offering arghya. Women perform puja to the Ganges. The Dasashwamedh ghat begins to get crowded. The intensity of humanity envelopes me. Everyone here is on a great endeavour - To be this someone forever. The tranquil Ganges snakes past Manikarnika and beyond the Panchathirta ghat where the enormous high-perched mosque built by Aurangazeb dominates the skyline in that part of the riverfront even in a city that feels very Hindu. But I walk upstream past the architecturally impessive Munshi ghat and arrive at Hanuman ghat.

 

The Hanuman ghat is where the Ganges is at its cleanest in Varanasi. There are’nt too many bathers, floating lamps or rituals – It is one of the ghats not considered particularly sacred and hence has been spared of excessive filth. An old woman clad in bright yellow saree sits on the step below me. She turns back and we exchange smiles. Her forehead is filled with vermilion and rice, indicating she has just returned from a temple or puja. ‘Are you from India’, she inquires hovering her eyes over the camera gear. Yes. ‘Are you by yourself here?’. ‘Yes’. More questions follow. Where are you from, Why are you here and Where are you headed ? When presented with these questions in a place such as Varanasi, you can’t immediately tell if these questions are philosophical or biographical in nature. Her face is serious enough, but she seems harmless. So, I decide it is the latter. Bangalore. Just traveling. To Delhi.

 

‘I don’t live here. I’m from a village nearby. Going to Allahabad to meet my son’, she offers animatedly. She produces an assortment of things she is carrying in her bag for her newborn grandson: Sanctified clothes, sacred threads of sorts, blessed flowers from a priest, holy Ganges for the kids bath and some earthly sweets of milk and ghee. She asks me if it is 7′o clock yet and then unpacks to reveal a horticultural display that her puja goods are made of and proceeds to the lip of the water to offer prayers to the river.

 

Further South, the Harischandra ghat is busy with the burning and cremation. Even further is the Maharaja Chet Singh’s ghat adorned with chattris. I’m at Kedar ghat now, with a temple striped red-and-white – possibly a South Indian hand in the temple gestion. I’m scouting around with my camera in hand and it is currently pointed at a saffron-robed man. He summons me to his side with a smile. A smile is a good sign, usually.

 

Who? Why ? Where To? He wants to know the answers to the same three questions. Also , one more. What do you plan to do with the photo you wanted to take? Well,…errr…Nothing much really. I haven’t thought about that. Then why do you spend time taking pictures then. Err…Umm..So I use the question-for-a-question tactic: ‘So, what do you do?’

 

‘Me? I’m a baba’. Chilling at the riverfront under a shade ? That is not a real job, I want to tell him. It is hard to believe that he is a baba. For starters, he bears a smile and has a friendly disposition. And he hasn’t asked for ‘photo-rupee’ yet. His body language matches that of normal people - without a ‘You-are-a-lesser-mortal’ air. Three simple stripes of ash run across his forehead. And he is even fully clothed. And no matted hair ? This guy , a baba ? The baba-hood is a post-retirement job, he explains and in not exactly the same way. He also officiates pujas at one of the many small shrines that line the ghats, he confesses later.

 

‘What do you like about Varanasi ?’, he asks when we get talking.

‘Hmm. .The faith. However mindless it is, there is an unquestioned sense of belief. In something. Or someone.’

‘And, you like that ?’

‘It is intriguing’. It is not a Yes, nor a No. That is the kind of answer I’ve been trained to give by my corporate bosses.

‘You don’t believe in God ?’, he asks sending out a warning sign. I don’t know yet if atheism comes in his ambit.

‘Ummm..It is difficult to explain’. Boy,they should give me a Ph.D for these answers. Anyway, he considers this an acceptable response.

‘When you came to Varanasi what did you have in mind ? What did you hope to see ? ‘

‘Hmm..I expected the Ganges to be wider’, I start non-controversially. ‘I did not expect such narrow labyrinths and chaos within the city. I expected a lot less commercialism – you know these peddlers and people alike. I expected more old world atmosphere. What I see today are mobile phone-wielding , money-extorting priests, Bisleri bottles, evening arti to a music played by a sophisticated CD player and Benarasi silk saree ads at the end of arti. I expected something more – Something that signifies a 3000 years of religious history.’

He smiles in agreement and then points me to a tree with strings tied to it’s trunk and pieces of little colorful clothes to its branches. There is a small piece of rock smeared with vermilion at the base - a man is offering prayers front of it.

‘You see that? That tree represents a yakshi (tree-spirit) – Yakshis were the honored objects of worship even before the emergence of Shiva and Vishnu cult (Yes, This is one piece of info about Hinduism I knew). So, that man there is practicing something that is much more than 3000 years old. ‘You see the Ganga ?’, he waves his hand in the direction of the river. ‘She has been flowing for as long as mankind has been there’. With two perfunctory waves of his hand, he dispenses a dose of profoundness. History is people and their practices. Not buildings and archaeological excavations. He is right. Baba or not, when a man has a point you have got to give it to him.

 

He resumes conversation: ‘I don’t see why so many westerners come here. There is nothing of interest to a non-Indian. And they dirty this place.’ When he talks about the dirt bit, I find myself nodding my head vigorously too and not for exactly the same reason. ‘They leave this place dirtier and foster greed among the locals. It is not good karma. Someone should tell these westerners that they coming here does no good either to them or to a the city that has little to offer to them’, he declares opinionatedly. So, if you are a westerner reading this, you are hereby advised to take stock of your karmic brownie points before you make that much-anticipated Varanasi trip :-p

 

 

It is about 9AM and businesses of the non-religious kind is picking up.

 

‘Hello, Bonjour, Hola.’ When I don’t respond to any of these - something that I’ve learnt since I arrived here in Varanasi - he accosts me with ‘Mademoiselle, voulez-vous des cigarettes? Maydam, you want cigarettes? European cigarettes’. I tell him I’m not interested in his cigarettes, primarily because I don’t smoke. He thinks it is a pricing problem. ‘8 euros, maydam’. ‘Only’, he adds as an after-thought. Ignore. Keep walking. ‘May be later? Yes?’, he offers. ‘Yeah, may be’, hoping he’ll go away. And he does, earning much of my gratitude.

 

This is the Varanasi of today – a potpourri of devotional and backpacking audience, both Indian and international , to whom these peddlers on the the ghats cater. The ghats are literally under siege by hawkers, beggars, boatmen and people selling everything from silk to spirit(both the instrintic and the infused variety), stalking you speaking a million languages from French to Swahili. I’m back at Munshi ghat now. The sun is pretty high in the sky.

 

As I sit on the steps of Munshi Ghat, a little boy about 12 years of age pulls over, puts down his peddling ware, sits down right next to me and heaves.. A heavy load of dreck for a boy of his age. He gazes at my bag, spots a water bottle. ‘Pani hai kya?’, with a friendly smile and a casual carelessness that comes with his age. I pull the bottle out and hand it over to him. He drinks to his throats content, almost finishes the bottle, but hands the bottle back. I instinctively say, ‘Thank you’. He slumps and stretches on the steps. We are both conscious of each other’s presence, but I continue writing. He leans over to look at my notebook. But surprisingly, there is silence.

 

A couple of minutes later (There it comes!), ‘One rupee, please’. This little guy ,who has just stretched himself to a comfortable position beside me, now wants money! Clearly he isn’t begging. He is merely trying his luck.

 

I smile, shake my head. He understands that it means No.

 

“One rupee, pleeease”.

 

I raise eyebrows, surprised that he is serious. I shake my head a bit more strongly and I pretend to focus on writing. A Firm No.

 

“You want some Saadhu photos ?” He has managed to pull out a few from his bundle and is now armed with a handful of picture postcards. 12*1 photos pack, it reads.

 

“You want some saadhu photos ?”, he asks again. “Not fake ones for foreign people. Real saadhus from Maha Kumbh.”, he adds, raising one hand in the air and making an it-is-big-deal face.

 

I have to accept now that with all his active body language and precocious confidence, he HAS managed to rouse my interest in this conversation. But most of all, what gets my attention are his eyes – bold, fearless, yet friendly. It is not that I don’t want picture postcards of saadhus, I don’t want ANY picture postcards. My backpack is brimful. But I do not mind keeping on with his conversation. So I ask him the MRP (Munshighat Rip-off Price)

 

“How much?”

 

“Assi rupey.”

 

“Assi ! Nahin..”

 

“Le lo nah..” He is not beseeching or even trying to convince me. It is casual and it is a demand- it rings of liberty that stems from acquaintance.

 

I sigh. I see what trap I’ve fallen into. This guy is capable of adding another whole kilo to my backpack if I don’t make an escape. A moment later, I’m on my feet. And, he calls after me (but unlike most of these sellers , he does’nt scrambling unto me).. “Kithna dhoge ? Chalees (40)?” He probably can see me shaking my head vigorously in response, without turning around. ‘Teek hai, thees..bee pe le lohhh’. Loud enough for me to hear, but he still hasn’t moved an inch from his comfortable posture.

 

I’m floored. From 80 to 20 in less than 2 minutes, without me uttering a word in bargain ! I turn around.

 

‘I give you. One pack. 20 rupees final !’, he declares.

 

‘I can click one photo. Of you. Free !’ My counter-offer to end this encounter.

 

‘Acha ayega’ ?

 

‘I’ll try’. Bloody choosy brat.

 

Poses. Click. NOW, the samson stirs and he comes over to see himself on the LCD and gives an approving look, but doesn’t ask for a copy. I give a tight-lipped smile and then a firm wave. Bye.

 

As I turn around to leave, I hear the familiar voice once again: ‘Didi, didi, one rupee, please..’. Pause. ‘Please. Pleeease’. Those eyes again..

 

Scoot. I run for dear life.. I think I’ll avoid Munshi ghat for another couple of days.