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.
Punch-hole cards hanging over the loom
Stretching the silk to make it as thin as possible ready for weaving.
The finished silk saris’ hang out to dry.
Time for Chai.