Chapter 3: Varanasi
It was late in the afternoon when we landed at Varanasi Junction. Unknown to me, as you would recollect I was firmly ensconced in the arms of Morpheus; we had crossed the River Ganga an hour or so ago, which to all Hindus, is the holiest object and the subject of much veneration. I did recollect waking up somewhere on the way possibly at Gaya for my morning coffee and then remember going back to sleep. Morpheus’ arms were not as powerful this time around and I vaguely recollect crossing Mughalsarai, the great junction where all the principle railway tracks running between Howrah and Delhi meet before diverging again for their different destinations. From Mughalsarai one could either take the grand chord via Dhanbad and Gaya to Calcutta or the main line via Patna. Travelling west from Mughalsarai one had a choice of three networks to Delhi and our train had taken the one in the middle, which crosses the Ganga a few miles west of Mughalsarai and almost immediately after the great crossing, reaches Kasi Junction, the first of the three larger railway stations that serve Varanasi. Most trains stop at Kasi, even thought it is a very small station and easily the smallest of the three, almost as if the engines need the moment of respite from the grandeur and sense of veneration one gets on crossing the Ganga and coming to a halt at the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.
The name, Varanasi, is derived from the two rivers Varuna and the Assi which meet the Ganga at this place, the Varuna much the larger of the two reaching its confluence a few miles to the north of Assi and roughly forming the northern and southern extremities of the city. Assi is the name given to one of the southern localities of Varanasi and there is a large bathing and boating ghat bearing the same name near the confluence of the rivers Assi and the Ganga.
Varanasi, in the course of its turbulent history has been addressed by various names, the oldest probably by the name Kasi. In fact, a small railway station at the point where the railway tracks cross the Ganga from the eastern approach is named Kasi and is considered to signify the place where the oldest concentrated habitation of the city began. This is quite near the main temple and presently approachable by arteries of winding, extremely narrow lanes, some so narrow that overtaking of pedestrians should be legally debarred. The Muslim invasion saw the name changed to the more Urdu Banaras and this was the name by which this ancient city was being addressed when Madan Mohan Malviya founded what is today the world’s second largest University - Banaras Hindu University. This city is indeed steeped in antiquity with an ordered history of close to four millennia. It straddles the west bank of the Ganga at the only stretch where the great river flows souht to north – a distance of but fifteen kilometres and the banks of this river have played host to countless civilizations and form the holy crucible in which the entire Hindu philosophy and way of thought was deliberated, ordered and practiced. It also stands next to the hamlet where the Buddha preached his first sermon – Sarnath – but five kilometres from the city’s northern edge. The city’s image and importance cannot be underestimated in India’s often chaotic but always colourful history and even deep down in the South, a Kasi-yatra and bathing in the waters of the venerated river is considered one of the most holy pilgrimages.
A millennia ago, the great Southern ruler Rajaraja Chola travelled a thousand miles from deep down south India to conquer this city in order to bring the holy water of Ganga to the southern part of the country over two thousand kilometers away, and thus was proclaimed Gangaikondacholavaram - the chola who brought the Ganga to the Chola kingdom. Legend has it that Lord Shiva meditated here in Varanasi and Markandaya the great southern Seer, built a subterranean passage from Thirukaddayur, Mayiladuthurai near present day Madras to Kasi and used it for easy access for meditating in Kasi.
My first glimpse of this city that was to be my home for the next four years was at the majestic lobby of Varanasi Junction and it was of a place teeming with activity, crowded, polluted, almost as much as Calcutta; but there were subtle differences. Most of the conversations were in Hindi, but in a dialect very different to what I was used to hearing, rather more sing song than the staccato ones one hears in Calcutta and the sounds interspersed with people chewing tobacco and staining their mouths with betel juice. I also noticed the people shook their heads a lot as they spoke, often sagely in a vertical motion accompanied with much movement of their hands as if making their points in the discussion with a studied grace and confidence. Very different to the Calcuttan who would speak with animation and passion but rarely with significant movement of the arms.
The activity around me was of a very different nature too. The people moved rather slowly, with studied patience, often waiting for people to pass them with a curtly bow and despite the milling crowds, one could feel, but perhaps not see, a sense of space, people didn’t jostle and push against each other – almost as if they were trying their best to be gentle, chivalrous and patient in their daily dealings with their unknown fellow human beings. Very different to a busy Calcuttan street where such genteel behaviour would merit a speed of 10 meters in an hour.
People were very differently attired than the average Calcuttan, most of them wore a long, loose cotton shirt called kurtas mostly in pale pastel shades, with loose trousers called pyjama often in a pale yellow or white color. There were very few women in the crowded lobby of the station, the few I did notice, wore a kurta-pyjama rather than sarees the average Calcuttan preferred.
In the midst the melee in the lobby of the railway junction & close to the exit towards which we were now walking, stood a large cow, chewing contentedly, blissfully unaware of the chaos around him. I noticed a couple of people touch the forehead of the creature with reverence and I wondered about the courage they demonstrated considering this bovine was blessed with two large sharp horns and allied to the obvious power, capable of tearing a man apart in seconds.
My initial fears of the place being some sort of a little, district town were dispelled when I exited the lobby and found myself in a stand for the public vehicles. There were at least a hundred auto-rickshaws - three wheeled black coloured public transport which normally carry up to eight people at one time but which are legally debarred from carrying more than three plus the driver - and scores of taxis, buses and cycle rickshaws. The unique feature of the vehicle parking lot was the number of bovine creatures milling around, all of them seemed healthy and looked in perfect contentment.
We walked across to the first auto on the block and before we could say anything, the auto driver was upon us exclaiming ‘ BHU jaana hai saab, come, come, sirf, twenty five rupees’. I was impressed with the way he managed to figure out that we were going to the college and my uncle seemed satisfied with his rupee demands. I realised it was ten rupees more than the usual fare after a couple of weeks when I began exploring the city. He grabbed our bags and stowed them in the inner recess behind our seats and was off before I could have spelled my first name. The driver started his journey by twisting and turning 1with remarkable dexterity to avoid the other autos parked in the narrow stand area and throwing me in mortal terror wondering whether I shall ever be able to reach the college safely for the ragging ordeal ahead.
A part of me wished we met with a mishap which would have enabled me to beat a dignified retreat from this arena and head back to safer pastures (? ! again a bovine term - these bovine habits, like Tolkein, are indeed Hobbit -spelling mistake intended for the Tolkein initiated -forming) in Calcutta.
The journey to the campus area seemed interminable; the air was constantly filled with extortions and counter extortions from the drivers of the assorted vehicles on the road all demanding the right of way. In the midst of all the commotions, one could often see a large cow or some other bovine creature lazily walking in the middle of the road - the denizens adroitly and immediately making way for this majestic animal sometimes with fear but often with reverence - or squatting in the middle of the road lazily flicking away the numerous flies which were endeavouring to make a meal of the filth on its body and thus, creating a sort of natural road divider which probably made the road journey a lot safer. The roads were narrow, lined with ancient houses some of which looked a million years old, with small balconies out of which I could see ladies leaning out and making conversation with a friend next door perched on the corresponding balcony. In all, the road never seemed wider than fifteen feet and I shuddered to think the consequences when two transport vehicles would find themselves on opposite ends.
Oh! This is the hardly the ideal place to be,
for as far or near as the naked eye can see,
only dogs, cows and goats - both she and he,
for fruit of my fervent prayers I’ll issue a penny,
& head back to Cal without wasting time any.
The city still retains the ambience of some eighteenth century megapolis where people from the interiors, presumably, used to come to display their wares hoping for a quick sale and back to safer pastures in their respective villages. Historically, it used to be a place of confluence and trade where people from all cultures, castes and places used to congregate and carry on their business. The great centres of Mirzapur and Bhadohi - centres for excellence in carpet weaving - owe their existence and origins to this trading post.
I was holding on to the overhead handle of the auto-rickshaw for dear life as the driver seemed to take great pleasure in moving the vehicle as much sideways as forward in his single minded desire to overtake the vehicle immediately in front of us. Auto-rickshaw commuting was a fairly new experience for me as it was barely a few months prior to my Varanasi departure that the authorities in Calcutta had introduced these three-wheeled monstrosities. Calcuttan bus drivers incidentally, refer to them disparagingly as ‘peepde’ - Bengali for ant.
Suddenly after about thirty minutes of the start of the auto journey, the potholes on the roads seemed to disappear and as we turned a sharp corner to our right, the road became as smooth as Hema Malini’s cheeks (the metaphor with Hema Malini and her cheeks is not exactly correct as we were in Uttar Pradesh and not Bihar - though barely fifty kilometers away from the border and it was one of the chief ministers of Bihar who declared that he will make the roads in his state as smooth as Hema Malini’s cheeks - but it was the first thing that struck me) and wide as probably any autobahn in Germany. This majestic road was lined with new buildings containing large shops, freshly painted in myriad colours, and the entire area wore an altogether new, fresh and prosperous look as if we had just moved from the whitewashed eighteenth century to the emulsion painted twentieth century.
I was later told we had entered Lanka, the approach road leading to the University and the newly developed centre of Varanasi. Soon, we a passed a large arch constructed at the entrance of the university and a life size statue of its founder. The road seemed even wider and smoother as we entered the portals of the hallowed institution, lined with shady trees making the July heat seem tolerable We could see numerous students walking or cycling engrossed in conversing amongst themselves. The buildings were all coloured a deep shade of yellow the corners and the lintels painted red to offset the yellow and looked freshly painted, the construction Gothic with the large wide body style of construction, altogether a very beautiful sight and made my heart a little less heavy with the prospect of living here in these bijou surroundings for the next four years.
I had been informed by some of my school friends that the campus is indeed very pretty but nothing had prepared me for this absolutely breathtaking sight. The University is roughly semi-circular in shape with the entrance placed alongside one of the two corners and the curve approximating that made by the Ganga that flowed alongside. The hostels were constructed alongside the grand chord of this semi-circle and it was on this road that the auto driver now proceeded to travel.
The auto driver turned his head back and asked ‘IT jaana hai kya’.
I informed him that we were asked to report at Rajputana Hostel and that is indeed somewhere inside the IT campus. Shaking his head in a way that conveyed he is aware of the area, he proceeded to drive us for about a couple of kilometres on a curving road through the beautiful surroundings I had described earlier, before entering one of those gothic marvels through a wide gate, exclaiming ‘Yeh hai Hostel saab’.
I got down from the auto feeling remarkably fine considering the toss and turn of the first part of the journey, and looked around myself. The place where we had got down seemed to be the lobby of the hostel, about ten feet across, with two notice boards on both sides, with five steps on either side leading to the ground floor verandah where the rooms were constructed. The hostel was built with the rooms constructed along the perimeter walls with each wall about two hundred feet across leaving a huge grassy area in the middle. This area was overgrown with grass and was dominated by a large empty tank in the middle, which I deduced could be used as a fountain in the rainy season. There was a large cot in one corner with a blanket draped on it as if to hide its antiquity, and on this I proceeded to place my luggage.
My uncle left me in the lobby and went to look for the office, which was stencilled in bold letters, to be found on climbing the steps on the right.
For want of better things to do, I strolled across to the Notice Boards and began perusing the notices. Almost all of them seemed to be belonging to something called the IT-Gymkhana, Cultural Wing and signed by somebody designated as the General Secretary. There were also notices asking freshers to report to the office of their respective hostels on arrival. I was wondering about the lack of activity around me wondering where all the other newcomers were, as I had imagined that all newcomers would be given living quarters in the same hostel; when a couple of students strolled in. They were wearing spectacles and short sleeve shirts and shorts, a pair of Hawaiian slippers, with a dirty, unkept look. It was quite evident their chins hadn’t faced a razor for a several weeks. All these I noticed later, as after a desultory glance, I went back to my perusal of the notices.
The name, Varanasi, is derived from the two rivers Varuna and the Assi which meet the Ganga at this place, the Varuna much the larger of the two reaching its confluence a few miles to the north of Assi and roughly forming the northern and southern extremities of the city. Assi is the name given to one of the southern localities of Varanasi and there is a large bathing and boating ghat bearing the same name near the confluence of the rivers Assi and the Ganga.
Varanasi, in the course of its turbulent history has been addressed by various names, the oldest probably by the name Kasi. In fact, a small railway station at the point where the railway tracks cross the Ganga from the eastern approach is named Kasi and is considered to signify the place where the oldest concentrated habitation of the city began. This is quite near the main temple and presently approachable by arteries of winding, extremely narrow lanes, some so narrow that overtaking of pedestrians should be legally debarred. The Muslim invasion saw the name changed to the more Urdu Banaras and this was the name by which this ancient city was being addressed when Madan Mohan Malviya founded what is today the world’s second largest University - Banaras Hindu University. This city is indeed steeped in antiquity with an ordered history of close to four millennia. It straddles the west bank of the Ganga at the only stretch where the great river flows souht to north – a distance of but fifteen kilometres and the banks of this river have played host to countless civilizations and form the holy crucible in which the entire Hindu philosophy and way of thought was deliberated, ordered and practiced. It also stands next to the hamlet where the Buddha preached his first sermon – Sarnath – but five kilometres from the city’s northern edge. The city’s image and importance cannot be underestimated in India’s often chaotic but always colourful history and even deep down in the South, a Kasi-yatra and bathing in the waters of the venerated river is considered one of the most holy pilgrimages.
A millennia ago, the great Southern ruler Rajaraja Chola travelled a thousand miles from deep down south India to conquer this city in order to bring the holy water of Ganga to the southern part of the country over two thousand kilometers away, and thus was proclaimed Gangaikondacholavaram - the chola who brought the Ganga to the Chola kingdom. Legend has it that Lord Shiva meditated here in Varanasi and Markandaya the great southern Seer, built a subterranean passage from Thirukaddayur, Mayiladuthurai near present day Madras to Kasi and used it for easy access for meditating in Kasi.
My first glimpse of this city that was to be my home for the next four years was at the majestic lobby of Varanasi Junction and it was of a place teeming with activity, crowded, polluted, almost as much as Calcutta; but there were subtle differences. Most of the conversations were in Hindi, but in a dialect very different to what I was used to hearing, rather more sing song than the staccato ones one hears in Calcutta and the sounds interspersed with people chewing tobacco and staining their mouths with betel juice. I also noticed the people shook their heads a lot as they spoke, often sagely in a vertical motion accompanied with much movement of their hands as if making their points in the discussion with a studied grace and confidence. Very different to the Calcuttan who would speak with animation and passion but rarely with significant movement of the arms.
The activity around me was of a very different nature too. The people moved rather slowly, with studied patience, often waiting for people to pass them with a curtly bow and despite the milling crowds, one could feel, but perhaps not see, a sense of space, people didn’t jostle and push against each other – almost as if they were trying their best to be gentle, chivalrous and patient in their daily dealings with their unknown fellow human beings. Very different to a busy Calcuttan street where such genteel behaviour would merit a speed of 10 meters in an hour.
People were very differently attired than the average Calcuttan, most of them wore a long, loose cotton shirt called kurtas mostly in pale pastel shades, with loose trousers called pyjama often in a pale yellow or white color. There were very few women in the crowded lobby of the station, the few I did notice, wore a kurta-pyjama rather than sarees the average Calcuttan preferred.
In the midst the melee in the lobby of the railway junction & close to the exit towards which we were now walking, stood a large cow, chewing contentedly, blissfully unaware of the chaos around him. I noticed a couple of people touch the forehead of the creature with reverence and I wondered about the courage they demonstrated considering this bovine was blessed with two large sharp horns and allied to the obvious power, capable of tearing a man apart in seconds.
My initial fears of the place being some sort of a little, district town were dispelled when I exited the lobby and found myself in a stand for the public vehicles. There were at least a hundred auto-rickshaws - three wheeled black coloured public transport which normally carry up to eight people at one time but which are legally debarred from carrying more than three plus the driver - and scores of taxis, buses and cycle rickshaws. The unique feature of the vehicle parking lot was the number of bovine creatures milling around, all of them seemed healthy and looked in perfect contentment.
We walked across to the first auto on the block and before we could say anything, the auto driver was upon us exclaiming ‘ BHU jaana hai saab, come, come, sirf, twenty five rupees’. I was impressed with the way he managed to figure out that we were going to the college and my uncle seemed satisfied with his rupee demands. I realised it was ten rupees more than the usual fare after a couple of weeks when I began exploring the city. He grabbed our bags and stowed them in the inner recess behind our seats and was off before I could have spelled my first name. The driver started his journey by twisting and turning 1with remarkable dexterity to avoid the other autos parked in the narrow stand area and throwing me in mortal terror wondering whether I shall ever be able to reach the college safely for the ragging ordeal ahead.
A part of me wished we met with a mishap which would have enabled me to beat a dignified retreat from this arena and head back to safer pastures (? ! again a bovine term - these bovine habits, like Tolkein, are indeed Hobbit -spelling mistake intended for the Tolkein initiated -forming) in Calcutta.
The journey to the campus area seemed interminable; the air was constantly filled with extortions and counter extortions from the drivers of the assorted vehicles on the road all demanding the right of way. In the midst of all the commotions, one could often see a large cow or some other bovine creature lazily walking in the middle of the road - the denizens adroitly and immediately making way for this majestic animal sometimes with fear but often with reverence - or squatting in the middle of the road lazily flicking away the numerous flies which were endeavouring to make a meal of the filth on its body and thus, creating a sort of natural road divider which probably made the road journey a lot safer. The roads were narrow, lined with ancient houses some of which looked a million years old, with small balconies out of which I could see ladies leaning out and making conversation with a friend next door perched on the corresponding balcony. In all, the road never seemed wider than fifteen feet and I shuddered to think the consequences when two transport vehicles would find themselves on opposite ends.
Oh! This is the hardly the ideal place to be,
for as far or near as the naked eye can see,
only dogs, cows and goats - both she and he,
for fruit of my fervent prayers I’ll issue a penny,
& head back to Cal without wasting time any.
The city still retains the ambience of some eighteenth century megapolis where people from the interiors, presumably, used to come to display their wares hoping for a quick sale and back to safer pastures in their respective villages. Historically, it used to be a place of confluence and trade where people from all cultures, castes and places used to congregate and carry on their business. The great centres of Mirzapur and Bhadohi - centres for excellence in carpet weaving - owe their existence and origins to this trading post.
I was holding on to the overhead handle of the auto-rickshaw for dear life as the driver seemed to take great pleasure in moving the vehicle as much sideways as forward in his single minded desire to overtake the vehicle immediately in front of us. Auto-rickshaw commuting was a fairly new experience for me as it was barely a few months prior to my Varanasi departure that the authorities in Calcutta had introduced these three-wheeled monstrosities. Calcuttan bus drivers incidentally, refer to them disparagingly as ‘peepde’ - Bengali for ant.
Suddenly after about thirty minutes of the start of the auto journey, the potholes on the roads seemed to disappear and as we turned a sharp corner to our right, the road became as smooth as Hema Malini’s cheeks (the metaphor with Hema Malini and her cheeks is not exactly correct as we were in Uttar Pradesh and not Bihar - though barely fifty kilometers away from the border and it was one of the chief ministers of Bihar who declared that he will make the roads in his state as smooth as Hema Malini’s cheeks - but it was the first thing that struck me) and wide as probably any autobahn in Germany. This majestic road was lined with new buildings containing large shops, freshly painted in myriad colours, and the entire area wore an altogether new, fresh and prosperous look as if we had just moved from the whitewashed eighteenth century to the emulsion painted twentieth century.
I was later told we had entered Lanka, the approach road leading to the University and the newly developed centre of Varanasi. Soon, we a passed a large arch constructed at the entrance of the university and a life size statue of its founder. The road seemed even wider and smoother as we entered the portals of the hallowed institution, lined with shady trees making the July heat seem tolerable We could see numerous students walking or cycling engrossed in conversing amongst themselves. The buildings were all coloured a deep shade of yellow the corners and the lintels painted red to offset the yellow and looked freshly painted, the construction Gothic with the large wide body style of construction, altogether a very beautiful sight and made my heart a little less heavy with the prospect of living here in these bijou surroundings for the next four years.
I had been informed by some of my school friends that the campus is indeed very pretty but nothing had prepared me for this absolutely breathtaking sight. The University is roughly semi-circular in shape with the entrance placed alongside one of the two corners and the curve approximating that made by the Ganga that flowed alongside. The hostels were constructed alongside the grand chord of this semi-circle and it was on this road that the auto driver now proceeded to travel.
The auto driver turned his head back and asked ‘IT jaana hai kya’.
I informed him that we were asked to report at Rajputana Hostel and that is indeed somewhere inside the IT campus. Shaking his head in a way that conveyed he is aware of the area, he proceeded to drive us for about a couple of kilometres on a curving road through the beautiful surroundings I had described earlier, before entering one of those gothic marvels through a wide gate, exclaiming ‘Yeh hai Hostel saab’.
I got down from the auto feeling remarkably fine considering the toss and turn of the first part of the journey, and looked around myself. The place where we had got down seemed to be the lobby of the hostel, about ten feet across, with two notice boards on both sides, with five steps on either side leading to the ground floor verandah where the rooms were constructed. The hostel was built with the rooms constructed along the perimeter walls with each wall about two hundred feet across leaving a huge grassy area in the middle. This area was overgrown with grass and was dominated by a large empty tank in the middle, which I deduced could be used as a fountain in the rainy season. There was a large cot in one corner with a blanket draped on it as if to hide its antiquity, and on this I proceeded to place my luggage.
My uncle left me in the lobby and went to look for the office, which was stencilled in bold letters, to be found on climbing the steps on the right.
For want of better things to do, I strolled across to the Notice Boards and began perusing the notices. Almost all of them seemed to be belonging to something called the IT-Gymkhana, Cultural Wing and signed by somebody designated as the General Secretary. There were also notices asking freshers to report to the office of their respective hostels on arrival. I was wondering about the lack of activity around me wondering where all the other newcomers were, as I had imagined that all newcomers would be given living quarters in the same hostel; when a couple of students strolled in. They were wearing spectacles and short sleeve shirts and shorts, a pair of Hawaiian slippers, with a dirty, unkept look. It was quite evident their chins hadn’t faced a razor for a several weeks. All these I noticed later, as after a desultory glance, I went back to my perusal of the notices.
Comments
It'd be difficult to explain how varanasi manages to surpass the time -which has brutal effect on everything,everyone and almost everywhile. How unflinchingly do we all ( the pass-out's of IT-BHU) have similar plutonic timeless experiences in Banaras - I guess it could only be felt by being the part of gathering(i wudn't use city).
Thanks Raja, for having me once again feel all those precious moments of life.
Prateek
Ece '08 pass-out.