Not just a city of ghats

Banaras is not just about paan, silk saris and gourmet delights. It
has lots more tucked away safely in its lanes and bylanes. Siddharth
Tewari discovers some hidden secrets of this ancient city

The Pioneer
http://www.dailypioneer.com
Saturday, October 1, 2011

I see a foreigner sitting on the ghats surrounded by a gaggle of
girls teaching him Hindi while he patiently intones, "ka, kha, ga,
gha." Tucked in his jhola is an English alphabet book. He will
probably don the hat of a teacher after he has been taught. This is
what the Ganga does, it takes out the best in you, tames you into
egoless surrender and makes you paint, write heart-wrenching couplets
or meditate with mystics.

The freedom burst happens after you have walked through the veins of
this ancient city, the galis, stuffed and crammed with the infinite
variety of everyday human life, with its essential concerns of health
and sickness, work and recreation, its intellectual pre-occupation
with philosophy, music and poetry, its commercial pre-occupation with
buying and selling and its emotional pre-occupation with sympathies
and antipathies. And then when you emerge from this chaos of a micro-
life, there is an incredible lightness of being.

"If you want to see the real Banaras, then it has to be its galis,
they are a story in themselves," says Pawan, my unofficial guide. An
avid photographer, he swears he cannot live without the "high oxygen
levels at the ghats of Banaras." Because he still hasn't had his fill
of living. So, why get transcendental without realising what you need
to forego in the first place? Of course, there's another way of
looking at things. Maybe you rise above easily because you are
accommodated in a throbbing mass of contrasts and contradictions.
Galis in this ancient city are divided into three parts -- Kashi
Khand, Vishwanath Khand and Kedar Khand.

WHERE GODS DWELL

I take an auto to reach the Dasaswamedh Ghat. The name indicates that
Brahma sacrificed (medh) 10 (das) horses (aswa) here. Conveniently
central, it is one of the most important and busiest ghats. We take
the alley that leads to the famous Kashi Vishwanath temple that is
dedicated to Lord Shiva. It is believed that Banaras is the place
where the first Jyotirlinga broke through the earth's crust and
flared towards heaven. Lord Shiva did this in order to take the final
call in the war of supremacy among the Hindu gods. Next to the temple
is the Well of Knowledge where, as legend goes, the original Shiva
lingam lies hidden.

Just as we enter the narrow gali, Pawan stops me and points towards a
shop. "Have a paan first. It will help you understand the city
better," he says with a grin. Apparently, Deepak Tambula Paan Bhandar
is the city's most famous shop. The shopkeeper makes the paan that
seems usual but serves me the supari and chuna separately. That's
bespoke for you. And yes, it does melt in the mouth. Like the
confluence of cultures, civilisations, thoughts and religion as the
Gyanvapi mosque and Vishwanath temple entwine each other.

Set amid the shops of the alley are gates to some of the city's most
majestic old havelis. In fact, these homes (still inhabited) are the
gali's richest treasures. Made of thin, sliced bricks with
beautifully-carved front facades, these are more than 400-year-old
houses. No wonder, Mark Twain had once said that Banaras was older
than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and
looked twice as old as all of them put together. These havelis still
uphold the tradition of private music concerts and are little
capsules from Banaras's rich past when nobles sought absolution. Like
everything else in town, the quarters wall up like a womb to protect
privacy and open out to let you in. It's for you to search the magic
key to let yourself in or out.

As I get closer to the shrine, the gali literally transforms into a
mini-temple with most shops selling pooja samagri (ingredients needed
to worship) -- flowers to dhoop and agarbatti. This is where the gali
forks into two -- one heads to the shrine, the other towards the
Khoya Gali. Pawan tells me not to visit the temple as I haven't taken
a dip in the Ganga.

I agree instantly. Having heard a lot about Lord Shiva's short
temper, I am in no mood to offend Him.

AN IGLOO COLONY

The aroma of khoya engulfs me the moment I swerve left. It is
believed this gali came into existence when a bright confectioner
realised that as the people of Banaras had a sweet tooth, there was
no point of buying khoya in huge quantities from nearby cities. I
find rows of shops with mounds of the crumbled whole milk, sitting
like an igloo colony. One of the shopowners, Ram Chand, tells me that
no one knows how old this alley is.

"My great grandfather told my father that his ancestors had bought
this shop so I assume it is more than a few hundred years old," he
says. However, the small and thick-walled shops do give away their
age.

There are two types of shopkeepers here -- the ones who buy khoya
from wholesale sellers, and the other who make their own. But both
are equally demanding of quality.

This lane, I find out, is a little broader than the previous one. "In
olden days, khoya was made in huge quantities here and transported in
horse-drawn carts. Perhaps the gali was made wider to allow easy
mobility," reasons out Ram Chand.

THE BREAKFAST DEN

The first thing a visitor to Banaras does, apart from visiting the
ghats, is have a breakfast of kachauris. And, to make it easy for the
visitors, a Kachauri Gali was formed around 200 years ago. Till
around 30 years ago, one could only see shops selling this snack
here, but now people have started selling mobiles, recharge cards and
other items as well. I spot the oldest and the most famous shop here
-- Jambu Dada's Kachauris. Even as I enter, workers are busy frying
fresh kachauris for breakfast and I spot the shop owner, a 40-
something man who is called Jambu Dada by one and all.

"We have many loyalists who don't eat anywhere but our shop. Some
even have them packed for friends and family back home. But things
aren't as good as they once were. Now kachauri shops have opened
everywhere in Banaras as people don't want to travel the distance to
have breakfast," says Dada.

As a group of yatris (pilgrims) enters the shop, Dada and I start
walking the street. "This is the first shop my ancestors bought in
Banaras, so there is this emotional connect. Though I have three
other shops in the city, I ensure I come here for a couple of hours
everyday," he says.

Dada tells me that though the streets are narrow and there is no real
"facility" here as compared to the upmarket shops in the Cantt area,
people come here as this is the beginning of everything good. "There
are a few cities in the world that have preserved their culture as
well as we have. Most shops and houses here have numerous stories
attached to them, while the lanes have immense heritage value," says
he. How true, I feel as I look around at a house that must be more
than 200-year-old. Though its first two storeys are old, two more
have been recently constructed. "That's why you call Banaras a
perfect example of old and new," Dada says, adding: "Most of these
houses can't be tampered much and only internal changes can be done,
else they will fall like a pack of cards."

A LAYERED CITY

Returning to the Dasaswamedh Ghat, which is by now a swollen sea of
humanity, I head to the Bengali Tola, a busy alleyway, that runs
parallel to the Ganga. Dotted with restaurants and small shops, this
place has become a major hangout with backpackers visiting or
spending time near the ghats. This is the longest gali in Banaras
(about 3 km) and is said to have been established by a Bengali,
Chittaranjan Das, an eminent lawyer and a major figure during the
Independence movement. Over the years, other communities have bou