Remember the sequence in “Jai Baba Felunath” where Feluda and Co. visited the Dasaswamedh Ghat for the first time in the movie. They were looking at the congregation of “Machli Baba” and the boarding house manager draws their attention to the unmistakable Magan Lal Meghraj riding his grand Bajra. In another sequence Feluda followed Machli Baba through the dingy lanes to reach the ghat. These were probably the first images which planted the wish to visit Benaras or Varanasi in my teenage mind. After that plantation earth travelled many times around the sun and the wish was lost between the complexities of life. Recently after watching another sleuth Byomkesh running around the town in the movie “Har Har Byomkesh” rekindled the wish. This time it wasn’t to be missed and the plan fell in place.
Day 1
While making this wish true I fulfilled my another wish of travelling by the Rajdhani Express. We boarded a 2 tier compartment of Sealdah Delhi Rajdhani express on 12th February. My in laws were accompanying us. I don’t know about you but I love train journeys way more than flights because of the sheer laziness of doing nothing for a considerable amount of time. In the life that I lead today getting a 8-10 hours of “no rush” time is amazing. However I won’t suggest travellers to take this option to go the Benaras due to the weird timings. We got down at Mogulsarai junction at around 1.10AM at night and boarded the hotel taxi. Even at those hours it took us around 40 minutes to cover 25kms because of the horrible stretch of road between the highway and the city. We were staying at the Hotel Heritage Inn around the Anandamoyi Hospital area near Assi Ghat. My in laws got a nice room but our room looked like a small cheap love nest kind of room which we demanded to change the next morning.
Day 2
Next day after breakfast we booked the hotel sight seeing package to start from that afternoon. Then we went for a walk to the nearest ghat and took a first look at the Ganga. It was Saraswati Puja and I was a little surprised to see the frequency of the community pujas around. Once at the ghat got the first taste of the famous steep staircase to the river. It was scorching hot even in the mid February as we walked by the river through sequence of ghats. The river with all her holiness was very very polluted. I could see hoards of buffalos bathing and people washing their cloths in the ghats. The water was pitch black. We walked all out to the famous Dasaswamedh ghat where we left the ghat and entered the crowded roads. The town is as full of life as with garbage. With help from Google map and local people we managed to find the target. We had our lunch at the “Dasaswamedh Boarding House” - the hotel used during “Jaybaba Felunath” to make the Calcutta Boarding House. It was pure bengali home food and the place looked Jurassic. To preserve the heritage nobody cared to put a coat of paint in probably last 50 years. However the sheer joy of sitting at the same hotel made me so nostalgic that I bet I could hear the iconic background music of the movie all the time.
The return journey was even confusing as we got a taste of the famous by lanes through the Bangali Tola. We kept on walking through the dingy lanes where people were speaking only bengali but couldn’t find a road with the other form of commute than walk. Finally we took an auto rickshaw and reached the comfort of the hotel. At that point I realised that Benaras is really a quite small town. If you can tackle the blazing sun you can easily roam around the town on foot.
In the evening our Boatman came to hotel to start our evening tour. We were going to see the evening aarati at the Dasaswamedh Ghat. We went to the ghat near our hotel an onboard on our designated boat. It was around 5 and the atmosphere was pleasant. The sunlight was departing but it as still enough to click few snaps around. We went through the different ghats where our boatman described the history of many of them. We had tea seating on the boat at one of those ghats. Eventually we took our position at the Dasaswamedh ghat and waited for the show. This was one of the top draws of my visit. Eventually it started around 6. There were 5 priests neatly dressed to do that Aarti on 5 designated positions by the ghat. Accompanying them were a group of bhajan singers chanting the shlokas. The prayer was nothing like I’ve ever witnessed and the whole show and the atmosphere was mesmerising. This is their Agni Puja where they worship the Lord Shiva, River Ganga, the Sun and the Fire. The entire thing with the songs, chanting, dancelike movements with large brass lamps with a snake hood, conch shells everything was so magnificent. The beautiful ritual made the moment of the evening period special and filled with spiritual thoughts. The big crowd in the ghat and on the river was mesmerised throughout. The entire thing was over in 45 minutes and we started our return journey. After returning we went to pay a visit to an very old relative staying at a dilapidated house in the middle of Bangali Tola. She was fragile and barely surviving in the middle of the densely populated place. In spite of that her love to us was really amazing. We also had some sweets in Kheer Sagar. I had some worm saffron milk before returning back to hotel.
Day 3
Day 2 started very early. It was Sunday and we started at 6 to wards the famous Biswanath Temple. The sun was still rising and the river was already crowded. There were hundreds of seagulls flying around. We bought some food from another boat and started feeding them. The boatman called them in a unique sound and soon 50-60 birds were fighting for the food. It was so beautiful experience. In between the sun came up. We soon reached a deserted ghat from where we started walking towards the temple. The lanes were as usual very dirty and stingy. Many people were walking barefooted and just watching them made me sick. Soon our boatman took us to a prasad shop just beside the gate 2 of the temple. In their we deposited our belongings including shoes to a locker. We also bought two puja thalis and employed a priest. He took us from the heavily guarded Gate 2 towards the temple. We were fortunate that there was almost no crowd till that time. Otherwise the narrow lane and gate would’ve a nightmare. We went inside the main temple premises and soon our darshan was over. I couldn’t believe that we had such an easy darshan as this temple is one of the holiest in the religion. Gods grace was really shining on us that morning. We also went to another temple of Devi Annapurna and offered our prayers. We went out through the same gate and took our belongings. We returned to our boat after having some milk heavy tea. on our return journey we again fed the birds. We also managed to see a ganga dolphin galloping in the water. It’s only natures miracle how they survive in such polluted water.
After lunch we went for a city tour. We first visited the Benaras Hindu University campus. It was huge and beautiful. We went to see the Birla Temple inside the campus. Then we went to visit the Sankat Mochan temple. Beware of the monkeys as the place is infested with them. However the sweet shop inside was selling the best pedhas and we bought a lot for bringing back. Then we went to one of the authentic Benaras silk saree shop.
In the evening me and wife went on foot to find “Bana Lassi” deep inside the bengali tola. We got another taste at the “Kashir Gali”. Eventually we found the shop and had a glass each of amazing lassi. Late that evening we managed to get authentic bong food in a german bakery shop. It just turned out that the owner and the cook were bongs and they were happy to serve us.
Day 4
Next day was a little lazy. We started for our final tour towards Sarnath temple. The place was nice but the heat was unforgiving. There’s a huge museum. We took our lunch in a shack and started back for the hotel. In the evening we went to the Assi Ghat and witnessed the Aarti there. It was a bit small scaled but beautiful nevertheless. The Assi Ghat itself was the cleanest of the lot and it was evident that our PM visit had some effects. It was the end of the tour and we took our train back from Moghulsarai at 1.30AM at night.
It was a nice trip and a long pending one. The town left an impression of a place which is probably changed very little in the last few thousand years. The place is dirty and very densely populated. Probably the local people equals the number of cows walking around. But still there's a different from the big city as the people don't have the hurry in life. They aren't always running to earn more or do the corporate slavery. Much like the river the life in Benaras flows down slowly asking the travellers to value the time in life more than anything.
