Talks

Varanasi. Benaras. Kashi.

Even after spending so much time here, life in the city was a mystery to me. Every day I would walk around in the Ghats, wandering, getting lost, talking, observing and exploring but the more I probed, the more I realized how much there is to the city than what we see.

If you thought that pretty lights reflecting on the river at night is the only beauty banaras posseses that boy, are you wrong! On my way to the Kashi Vishwanath temple I was standing on an unknown street waiting for the rest of the people to come so we could all go together. I was standing on the road, right in front of a tiny electrical shop and I couldn’t wait to get out of that place. The streets were filled with all kind of things. From rickshaws to cycles, from scooters to cars, from monkeys to cows, that one narrow street could sure hold a lot. i turned around and saw the man sitting in the electrical shop peacefully reading a newspaper, oblivious to the deafening sounds of honks and moos. 

He looked old and there was an amicable air around him. I stood in the corner and observed his big, semi wrinkled face. His small watery eyes looked as if they had been looking at the same things for a long time. There was a bored satisfaction on his face that was as apparent as his profession. He somehow merged into the background of his shop filled with light bulbs and wires and electric fittings. He perfectly fit in the streetscape of Varanasi, if I was sketching the view of the street, him and his shop would be a part of the sketch like any other shop, belonging there with no second thought.

It was then that I decided that I would love to talk to him. He looked like he belonged there but he was comfortable settled in that I had to believe that he had a story that was worth knowing. I read the name of the shop, “Gaurang”. I wondered what it meant. I knew Gaurang was a Bengali name and this speck of knowledge made me even more curious. Was his name Gaurang? What was he doing in Varanasi?

I approached him with an enquiry about the direction to the Kashi Vishwanath temple. He was very responsive. It was as if he was waiting for someone to come and talk to him. He told me the directions and I thanked him, telling him that im waiting for my friends to come. Soon enough, he started talking to me. He told me about the temple’s popularity and the busy times of the day, the commercialising of the holy place and how different this place was 40 years ago. So you were here 40 years ago, I probed. Indeed he was. His father moved from Bengal to Varanasi during partition and the place has been home to them ever since. Their family wasn’t alone in doing so, he tells me. Several families from Bengal flocked to Kashi and they all lived together on a street that is now called Bengali tolla. So Gaurang is his name? No, I find out. He has two other bothers, on elder to him, one younger.  The shop, started by his father was named after his older brother. His own name was Shubojeet and he was 65 years old. After asking about his own children, I found that he had one son and one daughter and both of them were doing higher studies. The way he was talking about his children, it was apparent how proud he was of them. He told me how strongly he felt about reservation when it comes to education and soon we were having a heated discussion about education in Varanasi.

In this entire process, I had totally forgotten about my agenda of interviewing the person about the city and his connection with it. I just went with the flow and what I found was much more interesting than what I would have, had I pressed on him about my pre prepared questions. I realized that people in kashi have a story that may or may not be extra ordinary. In fact, what is special, what isn’t depends on the receiver of the information. Talking to the shopkeeper made me realize that I am lucky to be able to gain knowledge and perspective from people who are so different from me, who have lived a life that is so different from mine. Yet, when we got talking, we shared beliefs and ideas. We exchanged opinions and we gave insights to each other. And that’s how you build a relationship, even if its as short lived as an hour or as long as a lifetime.