Kashi 1/3 - Arrival

I landed at Lal Bahadir Shastri International Airport, Varanasi, on a Thursday morning with a suitcase and backpack in a sleep deprived manner. I was not sure why I was there. It was mostly to get out of Calcutta for a while. I have nothing against Kolkata. I mean I do, but that’s not the point of this story. I was basically in need of a vacation. A change of scenery if you please.

Once the thought had hit my mind, it automatically transferred from brain to Instagram without waiting for my consent. For the next two weeks, I browsed through all kinds of trips from solo-group travels (a true gen-Z invention), IRCTC Bharat Gaurav tours (they aren’t that bad), Spiti Valley-like places (the usual), African Safaris (sure to get popular in the coming years), and even an Antarctic expedition! I didn’t like any of them. Each of them seemed to have a different constraint. Till I realized that the real constraint must lie with me. True, I was in a terrible mood. Terrible enough for me not to take any action to come out of it. This was all the more reason to go for a vacation. I decided that if I didn’t like anything in the next two days, I will travel to Varanasi.

Why Varanasi? Because it was logistically feasible, the bookings were convenient, and being a single Hindi-speaking man, I couldn’t go wrong in a touristy place in north-India. Besides, Shiv has a certain allure. Two days passed. I didn’t like anything else. I booked flights and a hostel in Varanasi for the weekend.

I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Part of me wanted peace. Part of me wanted to talk to someone or many people. Part of me wanted to go somewhere new. Part of me wanted to go somewhere familiar. Varanasi somehow satisfied all those requirements.

As soon as I exited the airport I was huddled by cab-drivers whom I ignored on instinct. I was no stranger to north-Indian touristy places. And I’d done my research. There was supposed to be a bus stand close to the airport that where I could take a bus that would drop me right in the centre of the city. But I saw no buses or bus stands outside the small airport. On some searching I realized that the bus stand was a 1 km walk from the airport. Sleepy me wasn’t going to start my trip with a 1 km walk in the hot Sun. Later during the trip, Varanasi would make me walk a lot. But thankfully she didn’t make me start the trip with that. I ran into a cab-driver who was going on my way for his own work, and would drop me on the way. The fare was considerably less than the other drivers in the vicinity. So I went with him.

You cannot have a conversation with a Banarasi local and not touch upon local politics. I don’t know which of us started, but he gave me his perspective on the local political climate. Banarasi people love to talk. I didn’t have to prod him much for him to go on a full-scale monologue on why his party was good and the other one was not. I tried to play the devil’s advocate which in most cases, only leads people to argue their point more vehemently. But I was beginning to get a sense of the city. I also wondered that if this truly is Shiv’s city, then I should accept whatever I stumble across as Shiv’s blessing, even if it be a blabbering cab-driver.

I had booked a hostel in the deep alleys of Varanasi close to the ghats. It seemed like a vibrant place with a lot of community space. I quickly realized that they had somewhat oversold their community places by brushing them up for Instagram. I also realized that Varanasi was not going to socialize during hot summer days. I was going to spend a lot of time indoors during the days. I planned on sleeping a lot, and roam around in the nights.

As I was checking into my room, I came across Manoj Kumar P’s The Silence Beneath Kashi at the hostel’s bookshelf (singular). The cover seemed to have that familiar allure that had attracted me to Kashi. The book promised great revelations, and I approached it with great expectations. I was quickly disappointed. The author had written the entire book using ChatGPT – very engaging, no real content. The style and shifts were repetitive. The book didn’t make any particular point or led anywhere. I wondered if this was also a blessing from Shiv or whether it was a sign of Kalyug where it had been predicted that even Kashi would run dry. Between musings like these, I fell asleep.

Varanasi had that vibe. There is a lot of lull and a lot of chaos. It didn’t quite get anywhere. But it moves and shifts, often outside and often within you. You can’t really place it in any category. It is not a strictly religious destination. There’s spirituality but there’s also any kind of deviance that you might want to explore. There’s freedom to do anything you want. No one judges. Everyone and everything is Shiv, including the dogs that might block your path. Anger and love aren’t expressed differently. Civility lacks civility, and there’s a lot of it. It is a weird city. I was going to be here for the next few days. I was sure to run into some interesting incidents.