The Ganga itself is mesmerizing to watch during sunrise. You can see all sorts of activities people do on the ghats- people selling flowers, offering tarpan and taking a bath, people eager to take you on a boat ride, sadhus and sanyasis all over the place, there is even a ghat where dead bodies are cremeted, Manikarnika Ghat. There's an age-old saying that people who die on the banks of river Ganga here are washed of all sins they've committed over their lifetime and they find a place in heaven. So, many people, in their deathbed, were brought here as it was their last wish to die here. In the evening you can see the Ganga arati, where priests offer prayers to Mata Ganga after sunset.
And the most famous gullies of
Varanasi- narrow alleyways between tall stone buildings in the old part
of the city, most of them leading to ghats. Let's say you are walking
through a gully, and suddenly you see an ox standing in the middle of
it, blocking the whole alleyway and you don't know what to do- that's
precisely what happened with me. There are heaps of trash, cows and dogs
eating the leftovers from them, cow dung on road here and there, people
on cycles coming from the opposite direction with speed- I'm standing
in the middle of the gully trying to figure out how to go past
the ox dodging the cycles!! But despite all of these, they've got this
old charm, an ancient feel that gets me hooked to the city.
Varanasi
is also known as the City of Temples or the Holy City. It has got
temples literally at every nook and corner. Well, till date, I've been
to the Vishwanath Temple, Sankat Mochan and the Kalbhairav Temple. City-
dwellers have got a strange connection to their deities. Every Gods and
Goddesses have got a specific day of the week on which there's a surge
of number of worshipers at the temples. For instance, Monday is for Baba
VishwanathJi, Tuesday for HanumanJi and so on. The crowd is immense on
those days.
There are a lot of places to visit in and around
Varanasi apart from the temples. Some of them are the Sanchi Stupas
where you can see the ancient ruins of the Buddhist monastery and an
adjacent museum where you can see the relics excavated from the site,
the Ramnagar fort on the opposite bank of the river which is the palace
of the erstwhile Maharaja of Kashi and a museum showcasing the paintings
of the Maharajas in addition to the guns,swords and cars of that era,
The Benaras Hindu University campus etc.
I admit that I'm a self-confessed food lover. So this post is not complete if I don't mention about the specialty of Varanasi in that field. The city is famous for its two delicacies- raabri and malai. These are the two things I just love about Varanasi. There's this small shop near Kedar Ghat that makes the best raabri and malai I've tasted so far. Another item is besaan ke ladoo, the best found at a shop inside the Sankat Mochan Temple. They are made of ghee and tastes heavenly. Next comes the chaat, dai vada and laung lata. Till now, I've only tasted the tomato chaat from a junk food joint and dahi vadas made of rasgullas. Really tasty!! That shop inside Sankat Mochan Temple also sells the best laung lata. Your trip to Varanasi is not complete if you've not tasted these.
This is just my experience during my four visits to Varanasi. And I'm always looking for an opportunity to visit the city again specially during Diwali. I hope that I'll make it someday... :-)
