Ravi Roy

Sunday, 25 April 2021

An adventurous night at Varanasi Ghaats: A review

@ray_r_1

There is no oil without squeezing the olives;

No wine without pressing the grapes;

No fragrance without crushing the flowers;

And no real joy without sorrow.....

Similarly...

There is no adventure without risk;

And no perfect life without adventure.....

It was 2 hrs to midnight of the set about of December. When the whole world around wanna sleep, we gonna nocturnal. The third longest hiking of my life (about 18.5kms) after trekking in Satpura forests of Pachmarhi and the Himalayas of Uttarkashi under the guidance of Nehru Institute of Mountaineering.

There was peace all around. We could hear the waves of the Ganges, which had become lazy in night. We were enjoying and cracking jokes on one another. The scenery was adorable ;white Siberian flock flying too close to the river level, countless steps, numerous boats& steamers, a lot of small& big temples with amazing creative designs and infrastructure and multiple effects of light , quite magnificent. Gradually, the joyful and light mood started becoming heavy. It was about half an hour to midnight, the colour of the surrounding turned pale, the relaxing heart was throbbing, body shivered for a while. I saw more than 15 fiery corpses covered with red hot branches of trees. It was my first such experience in so much numbers, quite fearful. Even animals behaved as drunkard. They were restless. Their red eyes and abnormal sounds were frightening. It seemed as if some bad soul have entered into them. We looked at one another. I could visualise horrifying effect on the red faces, not of dead bodies but of ours. I smiled tremulously, looking at my friends to recreate the light environment. They also returned thin and brittle smile. Everything was in front of our eyes, which we had listened or read in story books. It had been the very famous funeral ghaat (Mahashamsan),The Manikarnika Ghaat, for the time immemorial. The path ahead was obstructed with funeral, but we had to visit all 88 ghaats. We took a substitute lane to go to next ghaat. We kept up moving ahead till we reached Rajghat. Our eyes were bolt out of the blue looking at the infrastructure of the ghaats after the Manikarnika. It was really amazing. The night was daunting, and there was no any source of snacks to quench thirst. Some drug addicted people could be found enjoying in their own traditional way. But,the beauty of the Ganges and amazing structures at the ghaats kept attracting my mind and soul away from all the negatives. The few people were there to help or to guide, in case it was required. They were the shelterless poor or dwellers sleeping at the ghaats under temporary or permanent roofs.

The last ghaat in the row is Aadi Keshav Ghaat. Lord Duffrin bridge or Malviya bridge, a two-storey bridge, is between the Rajghat and the Aadi Keshav ghaat. It is a bridge of the famous GT road.

We took the down view of two trains crossing the bridge. After clicking some pictures, we started the return visit. We followed the same path, but the returning speed was fast as we wanted some sleep before the sunrise. We found some youngsters practicing music in the pious feet of The Ganges. Some old people were going to take the holy bath in that chilled cold. Everything was quite inspiring. We got a pious breeze of some different confidence and a new energy.

Thank you.....