20130331_Our Trip to Varanasi

20130331_Our Varanasi Trip

As is our wont, we plan trip around places, where, there is possibility of some pilgrimage. We had been to Ratnagiri (nee Ganapatipule), to Indore (nee Mahakaleshwar - Jyotirlinga at Ujjain), to Rajasthan (nee Pushkar), etc.

We have visited all Jyotirlingas in Maharashtra, e.g. Trimbakeshwar, Bheemashankar, Ghrushneshwar – Verul, Parali – Vaijnath. So at a spur of moment, we decided to go “Kashi Vishwanath at Kashi – Banaras – Varanasi including a holy dip at Sangam – congruence of India’s two most sacred rivers Ganga & Yamuna at Allahabad.

I was always longing to see Ganga. Since childhood, you have heard so much about Ganga, its majesty, its holiness, about the Aryan culture and the Hindu civilisation which got developed on banks of Ganga. ‘Pran jaye par vachan na jaye’ culture or ‘Jis Deshme Ganga Bahati hai” or ‘Chora Ganga kinarewala’ culture. The stories of Ganga Landing on Lord Shiva’s head and those efforts of King Bhagirath to bring Ganga down on the palnes from Himalya and so on. 

I have seen Ganga earlier on two occasions once in Feb. 1968 along with Sanji & Sheela when we visited Lattai at Delhi and in 1988, when I took Manjiri, Shirish and Dushyant to Delhi on a Trip. Both times I have visited Ganga at Haridwar and at Rishikesh and Yamuna at Agra as backdrop behind Taj. Ganga at Rishikesh and at Haridwar look great but still at those places Ganga is in her ‘teens’ (Something beautiful with a great promise of blooming).

Ganga at Allahabad and more so in Varanasi is a ripe one and is truly awesome. The word ‘awesome’ off late, has lost its value by overuse of the word by young generation. For them anything and everything is ‘aussom’. The ‘awesome’ has ‘awe’ included in it. Dictionary meaning of ‘awe’ is ‘reverential fear’ and ‘inspiring’. Therefore, ‘awesome’ must inspire ‘awe’. And when I looked at Ganga first time at Varanasi, I was awed.

 

On the other hand the most sacred Temple of Hindus, the ‘Kashi Vishwanath Temple’ was a total disappointment. It has no grandeur of Jyotirling like ‘Trimbakeshwar’. The sanctum sanctorum – ‘the garbhagruh - गाभारा  is very small. The Linga it self very small and is always hidden under bilvapatra and flowers. The Kashi Viswanath Temple Darshan was very dis-appointing. The Temple cannot be seen from outside. It is surrounded by lanes and bye lanes full of stalls of pooja material. You walk at least 500 meters in lanes before reaching the temple. You pay minimum Rs. 50/- for keeping your shoes in some shops. If you have Mobile and Camera with you, then you avail a locker service being run by shops in these lanes and pay minimum Rs. 100/-.

That way whole of Banaras is made of Lanes and bye lanes. There are no name signs and how one travels through them is nothing less than a miracle. We had been to Railway station from our Hotel three times and all those six routes were different. I normally blame Nashik Rikshawalas for exorbitant rates, but here I was paying Rs. 90/- for a 4.5 Km ride.

We visited many Temples but Ganga Darshan at Banaras and ‘Sangam’ of Ganga-Yamuna  at Allahbad will linger in my mind for days to come. All in all, it was an uneventful trip but still I am content with “Feeling Good” emotions.