the banaras i saw ... in poems
- ameetpai
- Oct 9, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
its been many years now since that trip to banaras. i remember going there without any expectations, without any internet researches ... only an open mind
and there were some deeply interesting experiences that have stayed with me ... i took the pen and paper to scribe the memories, but they just flowed out as poems & illustrations.. i am happier to remember them in this form
(banaras is also known as kashi or varanasi )
*Kumar here refers to the name by which the Indian singer Kumar Gandharv was often referred to. I had heard very little indian classical until this time and only a few Kumar Gandharv songs – not that I was averse, probably the time hadn't come.
By some strange reason I started listening to him from day 1 at banaras. As I was spending time alone, this music was practically the background for my whole experience of banaras.
Kumar ji’s singing moves me deeply. It’s the most played in the studio. It’s one of the benchmarks for me in my own work. He has composed and sung a large collection of Kabir’s nirgun (formless) songs. Kabir – I realised later – lived in banaras, at a different point in time from when those songs were sung, to when I was walking those same streets.
The music ran throughout, right until the last day when I got carried away and played it in a rental car whose driver found it soporific and asked me to stop it.
One evening on the banks of the river I felt so overwhelmed by it, that this metaphorical purge made a physical dip irrelevant
*A small temple, runs on donations, makes khichdi – a simple meal that is a vegetable and rice goop – and serves thousands of people everyday since many years for free
*my favourite ghat (ghat - series of steps leading to the river Ganga in Banaras)
*Dashashwamedh ghat – the pomp & glory of Banaras prayers.
Raja ghat – the bare essence of it
