My night on a river
I am on a boat bobbing in the waves of Ganga at
Dashashwamedha Ghat, Varanasi. The Ganga Aarti is about to begin. Come, join me
in having a look from this comfortable spot.
There is a long line of
steps that lead into the Ganga and behind them stand 7 cement pedestals where
stand 7 priests draped in flowing silk of red and yellow hues. They have an
impressive array of devotional material piled in front of them on the concrete
pedestals. Each one lifts one artifact after another and performs the motions
of an aarti in perfect unison and rythmn. The music flows from a wooden bed
behind this line of priests where the bhajan singers sit. And behind them is
gathered, in great strength, Banaras! A crowd of all ages and nationalities,
bathed in powerful lights, stands in absolute devotion and watches in awe each
motion of the priest’s hand as the flames of aarti in their hands billow and
shake in the wind that comes from the Ganga. The bells toll continuously,
pulled by members of the crowd. The temple bells nearby join the crescendo. The
ambience is divine; the smell of incense fills one with a soothing and
somniferous compulsion to fold hands and to watch with stupefaction the
proceedings at the ghat.
The lone photographer can be spotted easily due to his tripod stand, now here at the edge of the ghat embankments, now there mingling with the crowd at the head of the steps. I looked away from this enchanting ceremony to the darkness hanging heavy on the river itself. The boats lazed around on it in a congregation much like the humans on the ghat, they too facing the panorama of dancing flames and glowing lights and unable to break away from the charm of it all. And I saw the mud saucers carrying Diyas (oil lamps) bob and float on the waves of the Ganga, letting the current carry them away on a journey towards the unknown and visible only till the flame and the oil in them lasts. Potent symbols these, of the journey of life of men in mortal bodies, visible only till the flame within lasts!
Well, the ceremony got over and we, having fallen for the river side breeze, decided to have dinner and come back to the ghat to the same spot and to try and bide our time there till maybe 2 AM. Then we planned to go to the hostels for sleep. When we came back, the ghat was quiet. The ceremony had long been over; the high and the mighty had left the scene; the tourist had found his attention waning and had moved on; the priests were done with their daily rigmarole; the photographer had nothing left to click. None remained but the homeless, the boatmen, the seers, the dogs…and us!
The many wide steps leading to the ghat present a scene worth wondering at. There is a metal divider in the centre of the steps. That divider on the steps is home to atleast 30 families of beggars and sadhu mendicants. I saw the frail bodies occupying the steps, one fellow at every side of the divider, lying on either dusty pieces of cloth or on the stone floor itself. And so in a thin strip of three feet on each side of the divider, this territory of the homeless snaked right down to the end of the ghat steps, a double helix of religion and poverty of modern Indian DNA.
And if you looked hard and long, you would discover the inherent system, the order among this jumble of the poor, the property among this horde of the homeless, the wealth among this vista of poverty. The steps were ‘taken’ by the occupants, they ‘belonged’ to them; every family and individual had claim to their step as if it were ancestral land vested in their family for generations. And they guarded it with life threatening ferocity.
I saw a duel break out at one of the wider steps where two families had their territories at each end of it; one rested at the foot of the divider closer to the lower step while the other lay claim to the end near the higher one. And apparently a trespass had occurred when a cleaning effort by the matriarch of the lower end family had deposited some leafs and filth on the doorstep of the family close to the higher step. The battle was heated as the dirt was lobbed from property to property for quite some time before it wore itself down to such nothingness that it became tolerable, and both the matriarchs lay down their brooms and their arms and went back to slapping those young ones who won’t sleep because they were hungry.
In the midst of the sounds from the raging battle, we found the same spot and we spread ourselves under the starry canopy. The territory hierarchy was absolute and religiously followed. The ghat was ruled by the priests and the sadhus and the temple men alone; the county of beggars had ended with the steps. Our small place was a hexagon made of concrete and granite and was at the very edge of the river, at the height of a two story building. (yes…if you manage to roll a bit too much in your sleep, well…you could have a zero-gravity fall and a cold holy dip in no time; that is if you don’t smash your head against a boat floating about). There were six flags fixed to the six poles at the six corners of the hexagon. We let the atmosphere breathe life into us.
My friend had his bag while my towel, rolled with some effort and perched on top of my bag of candies formed a nice pillow for me. And thus began my most adventuresome night under an open sky and by the edge of a river.
The lights at the ghat are powerful ones; mercury, sodium and what have you. Lying there on the still-hot-to-the-touch-granite-at-10 PM, I marveled at the so many human figures spread out on the ghat’s concrete pedestals. I reasoned that they must be pretty used to it by now and was immediately troubled by the prospect of the lights staying on nightlong. It only seemed correct, what with the recent terrorist trouble and blasts in the holy city.
And so it was an amazing surprise and relief when the power went off in the whole ghat area at around 11:30 PM. It was the only time I felt grateful for power rostering in UP.
Lying on my left side, I had been happily surprised to spot a small hanuman temple directly in front of the spot we occupied. It was built far back on the ghat while we were right next to the river. When the soothing darkness came after the power cut, I turned to look at the temple and was again surprised to see a small oil lamp burning inside the temple, illuminating the God’s statue. Some devotion indeed, I thought. I turned back to enjoy the starry view open to me after long. The number of stars visible to the eye grows manifold when the city lights are gone and I got lost in the many patterns hanging on my night roof. An emperor would kill for such a ceiling in his bedroom; I indeed felt like the kings of old times whose dreams used to begin with the stars shining in from the windows and the night breeze fuelling them on. The Great Hall in Hogwarts of Harry Potter fame tried to mimick the sky; but here I was, under the actual thing!
I turned again to look at the temple. The god had decided to mingle with his children. Apparently powerless to wring back power from the clutches of corrupt and inactive officials and ministers, he had gotten the wind to snuff out his own light too. And so the relationship was complete. The God and the devotees both rested in the cool breezy dark on the banks of Ganga.
Suddenly the holy silence, the trance like atmosphere was shattered by the most mundane of things. The army of canines, also residents of the holy banks since generations, decided to settle some matter that needed urgent attention before they could go back to their slumber. The howls and the barks rang shrilly in the silence and darkness of the ghat. The romance of the river was shattered. I was jolted from my starry reverie and was thrown from the emperor’s bed. My friend didn’t even spare so much as a stir. That’s what living in a city blessed with a healthy canine population equips one with. Meanwhile, a priest lying pretty close to the site of the ‘dogly’ debate decided to play arbiter and the laathi swinging and crashing on the cement of the ghat brought swift judgment into the canine world.
The ghat was once more steeped in silence, with a few inhabitants chuckling at the troubles of the laathi wielding man. I was about to enter my kingly bedroom when, as if on cue, some ten odd bells began to toll madly in a temple nearby. It was midnight! I was exasperated. The hour made no sense at all. Mindless of my silent protests the bells continued, interspersed with shouts and chants from a throng of priests and devotees, slowly rising to a deafening crescendo and finally subsiding as abruptly as they had begun. The effect can be jarring.
I was in a blissful mood, having got my inspiration for my blog post, although in Varanasi rather than in Allahabad. Thoroughly wishing for sleep, I took advantage of the peace now hanging on the river bank. Far off in the city some generators toiled while their masters slept in the lullaby their mechanical servants produced. The humming of the machines was mixed with the flapping of the six flags on our hexagon and the lapping of the water waves in the river next to us, the end effect being like that of a distant waterfall in a forest full of bugs in the monsoon season. The river had created a whole mystic world of its own on the ghats where all chaos prevailed just three hours ago. From time to time, the boats tugged at the mooring ropes to test them. They rubbed against each other and reassured themselves. The occasional fish flipped and flopped on the surface. A whole body of starlit holy water washed down the day’s dirt to the oceans. The Ganga was busy preparing itself for the clear and pure dawn to arrive in a few hours. And in the meanwhile, it was churning out mystery and music in the dark of the night for its children on the ghats to sleep.
And so Banaras slept! And I slept along with it!The lone photographer can be spotted easily due to his tripod stand, now here at the edge of the ghat embankments, now there mingling with the crowd at the head of the steps. I looked away from this enchanting ceremony to the darkness hanging heavy on the river itself. The boats lazed around on it in a congregation much like the humans on the ghat, they too facing the panorama of dancing flames and glowing lights and unable to break away from the charm of it all. And I saw the mud saucers carrying Diyas (oil lamps) bob and float on the waves of the Ganga, letting the current carry them away on a journey towards the unknown and visible only till the flame and the oil in them lasts. Potent symbols these, of the journey of life of men in mortal bodies, visible only till the flame within lasts!
Well, the ceremony got over and we, having fallen for the river side breeze, decided to have dinner and come back to the ghat to the same spot and to try and bide our time there till maybe 2 AM. Then we planned to go to the hostels for sleep. When we came back, the ghat was quiet. The ceremony had long been over; the high and the mighty had left the scene; the tourist had found his attention waning and had moved on; the priests were done with their daily rigmarole; the photographer had nothing left to click. None remained but the homeless, the boatmen, the seers, the dogs…and us!
The many wide steps leading to the ghat present a scene worth wondering at. There is a metal divider in the centre of the steps. That divider on the steps is home to atleast 30 families of beggars and sadhu mendicants. I saw the frail bodies occupying the steps, one fellow at every side of the divider, lying on either dusty pieces of cloth or on the stone floor itself. And so in a thin strip of three feet on each side of the divider, this territory of the homeless snaked right down to the end of the ghat steps, a double helix of religion and poverty of modern Indian DNA.
And if you looked hard and long, you would discover the inherent system, the order among this jumble of the poor, the property among this horde of the homeless, the wealth among this vista of poverty. The steps were ‘taken’ by the occupants, they ‘belonged’ to them; every family and individual had claim to their step as if it were ancestral land vested in their family for generations. And they guarded it with life threatening ferocity.
I saw a duel break out at one of the wider steps where two families had their territories at each end of it; one rested at the foot of the divider closer to the lower step while the other lay claim to the end near the higher one. And apparently a trespass had occurred when a cleaning effort by the matriarch of the lower end family had deposited some leafs and filth on the doorstep of the family close to the higher step. The battle was heated as the dirt was lobbed from property to property for quite some time before it wore itself down to such nothingness that it became tolerable, and both the matriarchs lay down their brooms and their arms and went back to slapping those young ones who won’t sleep because they were hungry.
In the midst of the sounds from the raging battle, we found the same spot and we spread ourselves under the starry canopy. The territory hierarchy was absolute and religiously followed. The ghat was ruled by the priests and the sadhus and the temple men alone; the county of beggars had ended with the steps. Our small place was a hexagon made of concrete and granite and was at the very edge of the river, at the height of a two story building. (yes…if you manage to roll a bit too much in your sleep, well…you could have a zero-gravity fall and a cold holy dip in no time; that is if you don’t smash your head against a boat floating about). There were six flags fixed to the six poles at the six corners of the hexagon. We let the atmosphere breathe life into us.
My friend had his bag while my towel, rolled with some effort and perched on top of my bag of candies formed a nice pillow for me. And thus began my most adventuresome night under an open sky and by the edge of a river.
The lights at the ghat are powerful ones; mercury, sodium and what have you. Lying there on the still-hot-to-the-touch-granite-at-10 PM, I marveled at the so many human figures spread out on the ghat’s concrete pedestals. I reasoned that they must be pretty used to it by now and was immediately troubled by the prospect of the lights staying on nightlong. It only seemed correct, what with the recent terrorist trouble and blasts in the holy city.
And so it was an amazing surprise and relief when the power went off in the whole ghat area at around 11:30 PM. It was the only time I felt grateful for power rostering in UP.
Lying on my left side, I had been happily surprised to spot a small hanuman temple directly in front of the spot we occupied. It was built far back on the ghat while we were right next to the river. When the soothing darkness came after the power cut, I turned to look at the temple and was again surprised to see a small oil lamp burning inside the temple, illuminating the God’s statue. Some devotion indeed, I thought. I turned back to enjoy the starry view open to me after long. The number of stars visible to the eye grows manifold when the city lights are gone and I got lost in the many patterns hanging on my night roof. An emperor would kill for such a ceiling in his bedroom; I indeed felt like the kings of old times whose dreams used to begin with the stars shining in from the windows and the night breeze fuelling them on. The Great Hall in Hogwarts of Harry Potter fame tried to mimick the sky; but here I was, under the actual thing!
I turned again to look at the temple. The god had decided to mingle with his children. Apparently powerless to wring back power from the clutches of corrupt and inactive officials and ministers, he had gotten the wind to snuff out his own light too. And so the relationship was complete. The God and the devotees both rested in the cool breezy dark on the banks of Ganga.
Suddenly the holy silence, the trance like atmosphere was shattered by the most mundane of things. The army of canines, also residents of the holy banks since generations, decided to settle some matter that needed urgent attention before they could go back to their slumber. The howls and the barks rang shrilly in the silence and darkness of the ghat. The romance of the river was shattered. I was jolted from my starry reverie and was thrown from the emperor’s bed. My friend didn’t even spare so much as a stir. That’s what living in a city blessed with a healthy canine population equips one with. Meanwhile, a priest lying pretty close to the site of the ‘dogly’ debate decided to play arbiter and the laathi swinging and crashing on the cement of the ghat brought swift judgment into the canine world.
The ghat was once more steeped in silence, with a few inhabitants chuckling at the troubles of the laathi wielding man. I was about to enter my kingly bedroom when, as if on cue, some ten odd bells began to toll madly in a temple nearby. It was midnight! I was exasperated. The hour made no sense at all. Mindless of my silent protests the bells continued, interspersed with shouts and chants from a throng of priests and devotees, slowly rising to a deafening crescendo and finally subsiding as abruptly as they had begun. The effect can be jarring.
I was in a blissful mood, having got my inspiration for my blog post, although in Varanasi rather than in Allahabad. Thoroughly wishing for sleep, I took advantage of the peace now hanging on the river bank. Far off in the city some generators toiled while their masters slept in the lullaby their mechanical servants produced. The humming of the machines was mixed with the flapping of the six flags on our hexagon and the lapping of the water waves in the river next to us, the end effect being like that of a distant waterfall in a forest full of bugs in the monsoon season. The river had created a whole mystic world of its own on the ghats where all chaos prevailed just three hours ago. From time to time, the boats tugged at the mooring ropes to test them. They rubbed against each other and reassured themselves. The occasional fish flipped and flopped on the surface. A whole body of starlit holy water washed down the day’s dirt to the oceans. The Ganga was busy preparing itself for the clear and pure dawn to arrive in a few hours. And in the meanwhile, it was churning out mystery and music in the dark of the night for its children on the ghats to sleep.
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