Listen to your heart Spirit Speaks - Om Cafe slogan, Varanasi

February 16, 2023

Behind the ghats in the old, wonky, interlaced narrow alleys, the shops have been hit hard by covid and some traders are struggling to rebuild their lives. So many closed factories have killed the shopkeepers’ supply chains. Many have had to try and create new businesses. During Lockdown, some alleys have been brightly decorated. Building works are plentiful, the machinery isn’t.

If you don’t have a cow, milk is delivered straight to your jug - with a smile.

Some of the ghats are quieter and are a lovely place to sit and watch the world go by.

Our final evening in Varanasi had to be spent on the water again, this time we wanted to see the other side of the Ganges…

This has to be the biggest change we have seen here. We were shocked when we arrived to see what has become ‘the elephant in the room’ to the locals - Tent City, built by The Yogi Government over the other side of the river Ganges. What an empty, expensive eyesore. Created to cash in on the luxury end of the tourist industry and was inaugurated by PM Modi on the 13th Jan 2023. The tent city that resembles the sand dunes in Jaisalmer and Rann of Kutch in Gujarat apparently will showcase products from the East.

Apparently according to a newspaper ‘Tent City will add a new chapter to the tourism industry of the eastern UP and will bring financial benefits to the local people. The Tent City on the banks of the river Ganges will be a new chapter in the confluence of religion, spirituality and culture’.

I’m not wholly convinced. When I witness the numerous local boatsmen working so hard to make a living being overshadowed by huge Tent City party boats almost bullying them off the water, it doesn’t really enhance the culture or the spirituality of the place.

The locals still bathe, pray and play over this side but they are kept well away from Tent City. It is also where the families give up the cremated ashes to the holy river.

As we bid farewell to Varanasi, we spent our last evening on the water again with a local boatman. It gave us an opportunity to see the banks on other side of the Ganges.

We’ve tried hard to peel back a few more layers of this complicated city. It is breathtaking, frustrating, unique, chaotic and mesmerising and I doubt it will ever really face up to modernity.

Goodbye Varanasi, we have a plane to catch…

'Burning is Learning. Cremation is Education'. - Touts tag-line.

October 08, 2019 in Photographic Travelogue

The north part of Varanasi Town has a completely different feel to the holier south: narrower lanes, more businesses, markets and a great deal more noisy traffic. It is here the mighty Golden Temple is situated. However, It had just been decided that people are no longer allowed inside the Temple, but the officials will still take your money and let you know after that you can go no further, but still get your blessing, without going into the shrine. Something’s not quite right there.

We then found that from the Golden Temple all the way down to the River Ganges the ancient houses have been demolished revealing over 160 temples and shrines that haven’t been seen for centuries. This ambitious plan to pedestrianise this area may well help to regenerate it and save it in the long run, similar to the building plans in Old Delhi high street. Only time will tell, it would be a sight to behold.

Revealed - a tiny pink temple that had been hidden for hundreds and hundreds of years.

During our stay, It also happened to be the Festival of Ancestors, where people remember those who have passed on. Down by the Ghats, mostly underwater at this moment in time, men shave their heads and faces, bathe in the Ganges, and offer food to the sacred cows, in remembrance and respect to their deceased family.

There are two burning Ghats here in Varanasi - Manikarnika Ghat (major) and the less intimidating Harish Chandra Ghat (minor). It was the minor one that we were scammed with the ‘Burning is Learning. Cremation Education’ scam. It was all there in the guide book, we had failed to read it!

We were convinced by a guy that he was a Holy Undertaker, who insisted we went to his house and learn about the burning ceremony. He wanted no money, just our time to be educated and gain a deeper understanding of the Hindu ceremony. We were taken through the smoke filled houses, up the smoke filled steps and alleys and found ourselves on the roof overlooking the burning ghat. It was like nothing we had seen before and yes it was interesting and we saw a great deal. BUT this guy was no holy man, nor was he an undertaker. Money was his sole purpose and these people can get pretty forceful about it. We beat a hasty retreat.

During our visits to town we constantly heard the ringing of bells, announcing the procession of a group of male mourners shuffling by carrying a body covered in garlands of flowers on a bamboo stretcher and chanting to their God to accept the deceased on its journey to Nirvana. The frequency was strange, glimpses of bright orange material sweeping past…

The Burning Ghats don’t stop, they burn 24hours a day.

'If you dont like Pani Puri you don't deserve to be called an Indian' - Food poster slogan.

October 07, 2019 in Photographic Travelogue

Good morning Varanasi

Varanasi promised us sun, Ghats, evening Arti’s and gentle boat rides down the Ganges. Unfortunately this was not to be. The weather was changeable, finally developing into full scale monsoon, the Ghats were submerged, the Arti’s were constricted to a rooftop unless rained off and all boats were banned from the Ganges due to the speed it was travelling.

So we explored Varanasi Town. The Southern section of the city is primarily the Weavers Quarters and home to many temples. The lanes are filled with cows who are fed milk and chapatis on paper plates by the locals. Both the dogs and the cows appear well nourished. Many houses have patterns painted around their doors - an informal invite to an imminent wedding.

We found a wrestling school, where the boys were busy training using traditional apparatus, likes lumps of concrete on wood sticks. How they swung that round their heads I have no idea.

The Weavers Quarters is a mixture of hand and machine loom weaving. The Muslim weavers live and work in their own homes and sell their fabrics through a local co-operative, this looks far better than the sweat houses that we saw in Delhi. The dark homes provide a cool shelter from the humid heat, the wooden looms lit by a single bulb. The high-quality silk saris and pashminas are stunning, the colours so vibrant, they literally glowed in the dim light. Each weaver had their music on and took pride in their work. Each item takes about 2 weeks to create with their complex patterns and multitude of colours. The old wooden looms are either manual or have been semi-automated with the addition of punch hole cards to create the patterns.