Being (Sadly) Back from Varanasi

And so I am back, after a very intense, very, dare I say, emotional trip to Varanasi and then to Bodhgaya, stopping by at Sarnath in between and at Patna towards the end. What is Varanasi? What was Varanasi? It was intense, to say the least. It changed several perceptions about several things, many too personal to write here. Perhaps it is the energy there; perhaps it is the years of religious marketing that gives it an aura. The city reads like a textbook in Hinduism.

Praying there was a very, I use that word again, intense. Anyone who has been there will tell you, Varanasi is life changing, it sort of unhinges you, in many ways. The city is everything you have heard of, crowded, congested, dirty and utterly chaotic. It is a city where everything is crunched into its narrow and narrower lanes. Yet there is something there…and I can’t wait to go back.

For the first time in my travels, I took nearly a thousand pictures! I am still sorting them out. They tell me that you have to come back ‘home’ sometime, but I would rather have not. It is tragic that it has been over five years living in this city, yet I find nothing that makes me want to come back. Sigh!

Anyways, come back here tomorrow for the first of the Varanasi Diaries. I plan to do a photo story too towards the end of the writing and put up the Picasa link here because there are just too many pictures and I can’t choose!

Meanwhile, here is one of a view I simply couldn’t get enough of. The ghats from Ganpati Guest House where we were staying.