Tuesday 26 January 2016

When I met Lord Shiva in Banaras...Why you should skip the Ganga Aarti in Varanasi?

Varanasi or Banaras is the city of Lord Shiva, the god of destruction. You cannot meet him at the Ganga Aarti. And if you dont meet Lord Shiva, there is no point in being at Varanasi. You will miss the most important part of Varanasi.

As any other person we also went for the Ganga Aarti, where a horde of people on land and on water were keenly watching the pundits do their antics holding fire in diyas. I immediately wanted to leave that place as we were far away from the ghat and couldnt make any meaning of what was happening. But my Muslim friend asked me to wait until the Shiv Stuti was over. Being a Hindu myself I didnt know that it was the Shiv Stuti going on (a song in reverence of Lord Shiva). About a hundred boats filled with people from almost every part of world, looked on at the pandits at Dashwamedh Ghat. Two different groups of pandits in two seperate parts of the ghat. Tourists aggregate at this place every evening as it is the most talked about thing.

Shiv Stuti got over and we left on a boat. It was while coming back that we passed by Harishchandra Ghat. There was dead body being burnt on the funeral pyre and some people, possibly relatives standing in grief or perhaps some good willed people were cremating dead body of an unknown person (Watch the film Masan). You start connecting to Lord Shiva, the moment you look into the fire.

We asked our boatman to stop the boat there. We deboarded and stood near the funeral pyre of somebody whom we didnt know and I prayed for the people in my life and the world. It was a spiritual experience of being there and we met Lord Shiva, the god of finality. The god of Truth. The truth that we all will die one day.

There were hardly any people there as compared to the crowd at the ghat where the Ganga aarti was happening. Here there was no aarti, no noise..just silence. spritually uplifiting silence. You realise that all this rat race that we are in...our jobs especially, our fears are nothing...and we are wasting our time and energy on these fears, on earning money. We all will die one day and all our fears and anxiounesss, our money will go away. You get to experience that there is no point wasting your life on all this. Just enjoy life and be fearless.

And you cant get experience at the Ganga aarti. You get this only at Harishchandra Ghat. Thats the reason I would rather skip the Ganga aarti and be at Harishchandra Ghat every evening. By the way Harishchandra was a king known for speaking the truth...no matter what.

I also happen to meet Nandi, the famous bull of Lord Shiva there. While you find scores of these everywhere in Varanasi but the grace of the bull at Harishchandra Ghat was unmatched.




 I video recorded a dog play at that ghat. Three dogs playing tug of war with a piece of cloth.They seemed like humans to me who keep playing the same game in life to prove their worth. But you only realise the true worth of a human being at that ghat. Its either soil or life.



As we walked out of the ghat another dead body reached for cremation. Life's truth.



One of my dear friend's father passed away recently but I couldnt attend the funeral. I guess I was required to attend the funeral of another human being and I was able to do my bit.

For rest of the stories of Banaras, you will perhaps have to read my other blog entries on visiting a village where Banarasi saris are made and one on foods of Banaras.

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