The Ghati Spirits

I was aware of how much religion played a role in the lives of the people on the Banks of the holy River Ganga. I was aware of the faith they had, the beliefs they had coming down from years and years through generations. Experiencing it, of course, was phenomenal.  

On the very second day, we walked through the Ghats, right from the famous Assi Ghat to the Manikarnika Ghat. We started in the morning and it ate into our afternoon as well, until we stopped for lunch. It was all very overwhelming. It was my first experience of watching people near the Ganga. There it was finally, the holy river Ganga. I think this first day was extremely important, not because I learnt the most on this day, but because it set the ground for me to begin exploration, to get used to how it was going to be for the next eight days. It was a way of life for most. We were part of it too, the speculating visitors who they didn't worry too much about. It was only at the end of the first day while we were reflecting about the day did I realize that we had been on the move, covering a lot. I had no complaints about the walk. It showed me how engrossed I was in taking in all of it, soaking it in.

Vigor on the banks.

 

The Ganga wasn't the cleanest of Rivers, no. It's ranked as the fifth most unclean river in the world. After the trip though, after the sharing of bonds with people, after the viewing of the life at the banks of The Ganga, the lives of the people on the ghat, I have begun to look at the whole scenario very differently. The reverence the people have for the Ganga is tremendous and quite spectacular. Of course they're aware of the dirt in it, and who says they don't make an effort towards the cleaning of the Ganga!? I realised it is just us foreign minds that look at it as a problem. The people of Banares are doing just fine on their own, and while I stayed there for over seven days, there was a certain kind of force telling me that they always would be able to manage. What I realized by the end of this trip was that I wouldn't change a thing about Varanasi. Sure there were things that could be changed, things that could be improved, but doesn't that hold true in the case of anything?!

Morning Boat Ride Through The Ganga.

The morning sun started to get warmer. The orange-pink of the sun turns into a bright yellow, the kind that blinds for a few seconds after looking at it. The noise starts to increase. I can hear the ripples while our kind boatman rowed the boat he had put together years back along with his family. 

Of Jalebis and Kachoris

Through all the chaos and life in Varanasi, food is something definitely given a lot of importance to. Food and sweets. I believe sweets can fall under a whole new category all together.

I couldn't believe a friend when I work up one early morning when she told me of the Jalebis we'd be getting for breakfast. I come from a place where jalebis are had almost once in almost a month, as a special sweet. Hot jalebis with rabadi was a treat. A nice large juicy jalebi and I'd walk back home happy and overfull. And yet, here they were, two plates with two different kinds of jalebis, both yellow and orange, placed in front of us for our first meal along with hot puris and bhaji. From this day I knew that we'd be feasting on great Banarasi food at the guest house, along with treats from the streets! Oh the joys of those juicy jalebis, how they'd moisten the inside of my mouth with their warm wholesome sugary taste!

My sweet tooth was treated with a little too much sweet. The sweet paan, the thick sugary rejuvenating lassi after a hard days work, the jalebis...but there was always the kachori and aloo tikki to counter that!

The Banrasi paan I had heard of was one of my most fun things that I enjoyed having. I often stopped when I got a chance, towards the end of the day to pop in a sweet paan and munch on it for the next ten minutes, like I was told to do.

A Banarasi Paan Walla.

Food at our guest house was delicious! It was simple home food made with love. The cooks would often get upset when fellow students skipped meals, showing that they wanted their food to be enjoyed. It was wholesome and healthy, unhealthy even with the excess mouthwatering jalebis and gulab jamuns we got as dessert.

Food was a whole new experience here. To quote the chai wala I once heard talking to a friend, "Can you believe it's hard to arrange for sweets for my nieces wedding!? A shortage of sweets in Banares, impossible!"

Stay and the Enormous B.H.U.

We were dead tired after we finished our travel to reach our destination, the very large, the stunning Banares Hindu University. We entered the campus through The Lanka Gate, I was aware of this only as we started using the gate over the next few days, as we were all out with exhaustion while we passed through it in our vans the first time. The roads were wide and covered in green on either side. even the divider had an array of plants all along the campus.

Throughout the trip, B.H.U often called for sighs of relief from us. We'd come exhausted after our long journeys and unwind and carry on with end of day work here.

It was home for me in this unknown, characterful, distinct and lively city that I was going to spend the next eight days in. It had a calmness about it. I found the silence to have a constant buzz, which I think came from the students whom I spotted frequently on their cycles or just walking around the pretty streets. Kashi gave me a different sort of feeling as compared to any other educational university I've been around. I actually felt the old charm of it being an educational center. Not in the sense of the stories I heard once there about the founder Mahamana Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya still residing in the area, but I could sniff what he wanted to achieve. I got a sense once there of how it would've been in his times when he started off his process of getting the country to gain strength and to develop itself  through different communities coming together in mutual goodwill and harmony. It was his hope and prayer  that his center would produce students who could lead noble lives and love their country, besides being intellectually equal to the the best of their fellow students in other parts of the world. ( Words played with from Mohan Malaviyas own words).

All in all, The B.H.U guesthouse provided the group and myself a lovely resting retreat. The peace and large expanse of the place definitely got me to reflect and ideate more, a process that was very needful for my project. It's location, I felt couldn't have gotten better. The cycle rickshaws as well as the ones with five people in them added to our experience. No, I wont add grandeur to the previous line, making it sound poetic, but it was definitely part of the experience and something I think that deserves to be mentioned. Things were easily accessible once at the Lanka gate. There were the Ghats around fifteen minutes away, where I spent most of my time due to the nature of my project in the Gallis; it provided us quick access to the market, giving us a short insight to city life; there was food, the shops, the ghats, the Ganga... I think we got the best after missing out on our first few deals we had made with three hotels. Living in hotels would just take away the charm for me. Coming from the bustling city of Bombay, this experience is always something I look forward to.

Our visit to the Fine Arts part of the campus provided me with encouragement. I got to meet new people, students interested and working passionately even on a holiday. I have been to Art Schools like the J.J School of art in Bombay and the B.S University in Baroda, but of course these set of students were different from the other ones and had different things to tell us about art and what they felt of it. The time we spent here wasn't sufficient for me to talk more about it further. It basically gave me a sense of sculptures and a few artists working in other fields, all very proud to be studying in B.H.U. It did add to the experience, and acted as a form of satisfaction after reflecting by myself if I had made a mistake by joining Design School and not a School of only fine art. It came in as a form of assurance that I had made the right decision to join the Design and Art School I am in rather than a school that provided for only fine art, like I thought I might join earlier.

A great stay got our visit higher by several notches. 

Of Joy, Charm and Despondency...and my first film.

A place of hope, a strong sense of faith that I have yet to come across elsewhere, emotions on the sleeves of the people, a willingness to help, to look out for each other; the elaborate temples, the winding roads and gallis beyond the ghats, the ghats themselves, the magnificent River Ganga flowing towards the North; the chaotic traffic that still incorporated the cows amongst all the vehicles and people, the mouthfuls of Banarasi paan I saw around...the smell of morning jelebis.

This place of such deep character that took me less than just eight days to fall in love with. The city of lights! Varanasi.

It was more than just an ecological visit from design school. It was the getting together of a bunch of people, some of whom I barely even spoke to, that grew into family along the way. It was the findings of some great teachings; a start of new relationships. It was about the affection I received, the warmth I found in the city. It had that tremendous capacity to make me feel at home in less than three days. It was me experiencing history.

It came in the form of a reality check. It showed me my weaknesses. In the most indirect of ways, it taught me a lesson. The lesson of detachment. Of empathy and not sympathy; of courage. Courage to let go, to keep emotions at bay when it acts as an interference and yet to always display sensitivity.

The culmination of my emotions.

There is definitely a piece of me residing there, that I don't think I shall ever get back. A piece I'm quite sure isn't miserable belonging to the city on the banks of the holy River Ganga.

Or rather, there is a piece of that marvelous city in me. A piece I didn't know would ever be part of me. A piece of it that I shall treasure till as long as I can remember it, a piece that has now contributed to my characters, and that will in the years to come.

I shall always live with a little Varanasi in me.

I found what I wanted to in the gallis behind The Tulsi Ghat. It was the place Tulsidas lived at while he wrote the Ramcharitmanas. It's a home to a variety of important activities ranging from 'Lolark Sasthi' (the place where sons used to be blessed for a long life) to the dipping of leprosy patients in the holy water for healing. It is also the office base for 'Sankat Mochan Foundation', a non governmental organization working to clean the Ganga since 1982.

However, in spite of all these activities and the importance of it's location near the famous Assi Ghat, I found a story in the corner of the galli behind Tulsi Ghat. I found myself in the family of a Chai walla, in their lives, through their stories.

It has definitely been the highlight of my trip. A part that has contributed to at-least 60% of my experience. I chose to learn about Varanasi through this Chai walla and his family. For me, it wasn't as important to know the facts from the Sadhus and Sages or the leading people of the land. Through the hearts of this family located behind the famous ghat, I could locate the city. I saw the city through the eyes of a family living there through generations. I got my facts of the city and the holy river from them. I learnt about the people, the culture, their beliefs and faiths, their own personal emotions, likes and dislikes, religion, food and the works.

I had formed new relationships, relationships to be cherished. Relationships that have taught me lessons I could have got from nowhere else.

It is the start to my practice of detachment. Vairaagya, in Sanskrit. Letting go. In many ways, it gave me a larger picture on life. We're all part of the same human race. We vary in terms of origin, language, religion etc., but it showed me how similar we all are. We all have the need for company. We are curious animals who can't live alone. We have the want for recognition. We want to be remembered. We work to sustain ourselves, of course; but it showed me that sustenance isn't our only goal in life. Survival is, and individually we have certain ways to attain this through the process of this game of survival, of life. This tea stall owner wasn't very different from the people I've met before or the people I know or the people we see on television, celebrities from the world across; parents from the middle classes, the poorer and the rich families raising their children, children growing up, the elderly...all of us. It showed me that we're all alone, living together. We have people, none of them shall stay. They'll support you, they might betray you, but you shall always be alone. We're all individuals, incapable of living in isolation, but yet we are all alone. The chai walla always found himself alone at the the end of the day. He had people through the day that I saw him sharing happiness with, people he looked comfortable with, some of them he didn't like too much, just like the rest of us. But he was alone at the end of the day. He was alone, just like the rest of us. He was aware of it, he had embraced it, there did I embrace it too.

Through a family in the tiny gallis of Kashi, I found joy. I found lessons that no book would be able to teach me. I learnt for myself that when we don't have certain things we crave for and we look for them elsewhere, it shall never be found. Acceptance and moving on is important, for ones own development, for us to continue on our journeys of our short lives.

Here is my first short film, a film on attachments and new findings. Of my findings in Varanasi, of the importance of detachment.

The link provides for better viewing: http://youtu.be/fOTsZsX37w8

Matters of the Heart.

While preparing for this course, I found myself looking for several answers that I had been questioning myself on; answers to questions that crop up in our minds as we grow through life. Questions of existence, religion, living in harmony, life and death, the human mind… questions that we want answers for, answers that we look for through our journeys, journeys that will only impose upon us more questions, questions that will only be answered through experiences, further experiences which will change our past answers we’ve gotten. Answers too, once gotten, may not be right. We decide them to be right according to what suits us, what we can make sense of, or add sense to. Until life throws us more questions in the form of experiences, to take away the sense we worked to find in life’s strange ways.

Human beings. Culture-bearing primates that have highly developed brains and a result capacity for articulate speech and abstract reasoning. Millions of discoveries over time, wars, revolutions, movements, centuries of growth…and still here we are, looking for answers for the same fundamental questions, unsatisfied with the answers we’re aware of.

We shall probably never know who we are. What we know of ourselves will always be through the eyes of another, through the eyes of the other humans around us. This is one of man’s greatest weaknesses, a downfall. A dilemma, something we won’t be able to change. We seek ourselves through the eyes of others; peers, enemies, colleagues, parents, children, strangers… Never shall we be able to look at ourselves as a whole, from the outside to know our inside. Never will it be possible.

We are curious animals. Our lives are dialogues between our voices and ourselves. Life is the process of looking in and looking out; a process of learning through experiences. A series of continuous questioning, a quest for the meaning of existence, a desire to be remembered, we live for a sense of basic dignity… and yet we get lost in our own traps, our selfish lives, and our selfish ways. We lose the purpose of life. We forget about humanity, about love and harmony. We look out for ourselves, selfish animals that we are. And yet, who is to say what is right and what isn’t?  

So, I set out to find my dignity in the holy lands of Kashi.

To look for deeper meanings.

To look for the dignity of one of the world’s oldest continually inhabited cities.

For that deep character that allows it to stay stuck in time.

For the charm that keeps it alive through so many centuries.

The City of Light.

I set out to look at it through my heart and not my eyes.

A land of Salvation; of life and death.

I started off to find myself in Shiva’s most favorite place.

The only region of India where the Ganga flows towards the North.

Varanasi.

Life and its Ways.

काशी Calling.

The announcement of the trip came as quite a disappointment to me. Coming from the large bustling city of Bombay, I was looking forward to an experience of different sorts.  Life has its ways though, and if I had five chances to change it, I wouldn't. Little did I know that Kashi, a place I felt I would never be able to connect with, would be a place I was sure of visiting again, a place where a little part of me would always belong.

I didn't expect too much of the place. Not in the sense of ‘great expectations’, but expectations of any sort. With the disappointment of not getting the course I wanted, the excitement and expectations were kept at bay, until the last few days before we left for Varanasi.

I have always been interested in religion and faith. Growing up in a family with agnostic parents, being faithful by the age of nine and then deciding to follow a certain religion by the age of twelve, I have always been the kind that enjoyed learning and discovering new faiths and religion. I’d call myself spiritual now. Still dwindling on the much controversial topic of religion, I was looking forward to learning about new religions, especially Hinduism, one that I’ve been really fascinated with, through time immemorial. I definitely knew I was supposed to consider myself as more than lucky. It was after all the land of the most holy Ganga I was visiting, a melting pot. A land where life and death comes together.

I was definitely interested in going to Varanasi once school started. A place with over  4000 years of history, a land of deep beliefs and faiths, a place of rich heritage, a city of hope and life, the gallis of activity, the religious capital of India, a place of peaceful death…who wouldn't be?! During the induction week, the vague idea I got of Kashi, I would say, did the place complete injustice. Even more than injustice, if there exists such a thing. The river Ganga, the sadhus of the ghats, the gallis, the chaotic roads, the exciting food, the dirt, the cows, the language and dialects…I had an overview of all of it, in a way that I found quite interesting. However, I can now say that I didn't have a clue then of what I would be getting into for the next eight days.