Revisiting Varanasi

For anyone having lived in Varanasi for over two decades a recent visit to the city may come as a surprise. Varanasi the ancient, Varanasi the spiritual, Varanasi the cultural, is changing. While travelling through the city on a manually driven rickshaw, one would find that Varanasi has grown. Grown in reach, grown in size, grown in population. And of late, grown in reputation as the city with maximum political clout after Delhi. But amidst all these changes, in terms of infrastructure, some beautification at select crossings and some modern looking structures, one thing can be noticed. Between widening roads and those high rise buildings. Varanasi is no longer the same experience that used to be. The cycle rickshaws of the city have been replaced by auto rickshaws and the tongas (horse driven carts) are a rarity. And the ‘Banarasi’, the typical resident, who used to laugh at his loudest on the main squares like Godowlia is diificult to find. As tradition gives way to modernity, it seems the spiritual capital of India, the city of Lord Vishwanath is gradually losing its soul in the cacophony of so called development. In the Rig Veda times the city was referred to as ‘Kashi’ the seat of learning, Kashi the city of light. Varanasi is one of the oldest continually inhabited city according to archaeological evidence. As efforts to make Varanasi a smart city pick up, efforts to retain the classical Varanasi also need to go simultaneously. Varanasi has a special place in the spiritual and cultural history of India.

As glitzy malls and four lanes change the shopping and driving experience of the city dwellers this religious city is struggling to find its soul. The city has become a medical hub catering to the health needs of eastern Uttar Pradesh and western Bihar and private health care centres are coming up in a big way. But all these developments are relegating Kashi, the city of liberation to the back seat. The Ghats on the banks of the holy Ganga that housed seekers of Moksha are losing their original character. The spiritual abode is slowly becoming a place for pleasure seeking rather than soul searching. The threat to the essence of Varanasi is an issue that also needs to be addressed.

Though it is good to see that the cleaning of the ghats is being taken up after the Swachch Bharat Abhiyaan and initiatives like Jal Shav Vahini (Boats to carry dead body through the river Ganges) making things convenient, yet there is a need to package the Varanasi heritage which is gradually fading into oblivion. The spirit of Varanasi lies in its ethos which can be very neatly summed up in the colloquial saying:
Chana chabena, gang jal jo purbey kartar, Kashi kabahu na chadiye, Vishwanath darbar.
That is ‘If the lord provides roasted grams to subsist and the holy Ganges to bathe, there is no need to leave Kashi, the abode of Shiva.’ Special efforts to make this holy city a global spiritual centre, repositioning it as world’s biggest seat of Hinduism are needed.