Often people say that the journey is more important than the destination. This holds true for a lot of things, including the process of completing projects related to places we’ve visited.

Most of our work in Varanasi was based on talking to people and getting to know about the place. All our work was supposed to be about the people and how they have shaped their lives around a five thousand year old city filled to the brim with history. While most people had a clear idea what they wanted to do, I was still a little confused as to what exactly I wanted to achieve out of this social ecology trip. What I found out about myself was this, I’m a person who needs to know why people tick. Thus, I decided to put a twist to that desire to know and related it to the places in which people live and thus I had some kind of notion as to what was to be done.

The entrance to one of the many temples in Katchodi Gali

However, while most people spoke to people about the place and their roles in it, I found myself unable to do so. Primarily because I’m not exactly what one would call a socially outgoing person, secondly because I noticed that most people in the place had very generic and standard answers to any questions you asked them. Those weren’t the kind of answers I was looking for. A lot of my inquiry was about observing people and their behaviour in their own surroundings. I’ve noticed that often, when you simply sit and watch people, you’ll find out more about people than they’re willing to tell you and that is an interesting experience in itself. 

For example, in Dalmandi, you’ll see hundreds of people milling about and almost all these people are known to the people who run the shops, definitely not by name but certainly by face. It almost feels like a close-knit community the moment you enter that alley. On the other hand, when you enter Katchodi Gali you’ll see people sitting around, everyone doing their own thing, the sense of community isn’t as strong as you’d expect in a lane populated by Hindus. Another interesting fact, police presence in Katchodi Gali is extreme to the degree that you will not go past a single alley without at least seeing a pair of policemen. Perhaps is due to the fact that the Kashi Vishwanath Temple has four gates that go into the temple complex and two of them are in Katchodi Gali. Funnily enough, right next to the temple is the Gyanvapy mosque. It stands next to the temple and was made by Babar when he invaded the city and had many of the temples in the city razed to the ground. It was said that before the coming of Babar, that there were more temples in Kashi than there were priests to tend to them.

One of the more deserted parts of Dalmandi

I can recall one time in the lanes, as we were walking around, we had stopped to ask for directions at a store that did book bindings. When we asked for directions the man more than happily told us the way. However,

We decided to stay on for a while and talk to the man. We asked him about the place and how the lane had come to be known as Katchodi gali, he told us that twenty years or so prior to our visit the lanes in the area had been filled with Katchodi’s, and now thanks to more economic avenues opening up, a lot of the katchodi shops had shut down, people had begun searching for better paying jobs and thus the lack of katchodis as compared to the days of old.  As we spoke to him, we also asked him about the significance of the upcoming festival that was going to happen in the next couple of days, Deep Depavali, one that we were fortunate enough to be present for. He explained that it was celebrated as a festival of light. As were leaving, another man was walking by with a cup of tea in his hand; he looked like a frail man, with barely any teeth in his mouth and walking with a slight stoop. However, as the man passed, the shop keeper that we had been speaking to hailed him and asked him to explain the significance of the festival as well as the importance of the month of Kartik, which is a month in the Hindu calendar, that runs at a slightly different yearly cycle than the Gregorian calendar that we all follow.

The man instantly transformed into someone barely out of their teens, he explained that the month means the most to Lord Shri Krishna and that Deep Deepawali is essentially the festival of the lights of the gods, all while prancing about the spot. He explained that the Deep Deepawali is celebrated as the day that one of the avatars of Lord Shiva, Tripurantaka,  the slayer of the demon Tripasura, hence the gods declared the day as a festival of illuminations. The festival always takes place on the night of the full moon, also known as the time of Kartik Poornima, in this case, November the 6^th, 2014. One must understand that this festival is exclusive to the city of Varanasi and no other city in the country. It’s also one of the few days in the year when close to the entire population of the city flocks to the ghats to make merry and celebrate this occasion, bringing the daily life of a lot of people to a screeching halt.

Brown Bread Bakery(pretty famous for its location)

It should be noted that despite the seemingly peaceful nature of the city and the galis, there is still a negative sentiment towards Muslims in the place. I could give an example from personal experience; me and a couple of friends were trying to get to Dalmandi for the first time, and this was in the middle of the afternoon, when Varanasi can get pretty hot, especially in November. Just after you step out of Dashashvamedh Ghat the road curves towards the right and then left after which it is cordoned off to allow only pedestrian traffic. Just before the road gets cordoned off, there’s a row of shops selling a variety of things on the right side of the road. We stopped at one particular store to ask for directions and some water. To our surprise, they told us that the place where we wanted to go was unsafe and that the place is normally like that and its never a good idea to go there, let alone people just visiting the city.  We were quite taken aback since we had just spoken to a very polite Muslim gentleman who told us that he’d take us to the lane if we would just follow him as he was going to have lunch at the same place. We thanked the shop owner and decided to re-affirm what the owner had said with a policeman. When we found one and asked him about the place and whether there had been any trouble there, he denied it with confidence. Despite this being an isolated incident I still found it rather troubling as to how, in a city that has seen rulers from so many different dynasties and religions in its five thousand years of existence still has problems with trivial things like this. Perhaps it’s a constant in a city like this, or maybe a constant in our country.