❝Hear the silence, love, you may find yourself in there!❞

1st April 2009

As if the February winter, that fading chill traveling down the arms and leaving goosebumps occasionally, something far but enveloping kept igniting my hopes.

Hopes I didn't know what for.

I could feel the breeze of Ganga colliding with my cotton-clad body and covering me in a pleasant, nostalgic essence. The last I was genuinely happy and surrounded by my family was our trip to Rishikesh, the year I was done with my schooling. Having no embrace of father, oftentimes we had been told to shift with my grandparents and relatives who housed a remote village in Bihar, and help them in housekeeping. However, family from our father's side wished to make no acquaintance with us. My mother who was born and raised in a relatively poor, lower division of the Bengali family, happened to be a thorn in our relatives' orthodox eyes.

We had been sympathized with, but neglected. Underestimated. Completing my schooling, rooted in the same place, was my way of shutting those voices.

Rishikesh was our way to remember my father being our guide, even if physically afar. Whenever a breeze passed us, anywhere we went, Maa used to stand still, a smile always playing on her lips, and she would mutter in a voice loaded with awe, "Tomar baba tomake ashirbaad korte esechhen." The breeze was our way of believing that he was always watching us, still falling into the role of a guide.

I couldn't keep the smile off my face when the breeze seemed to embrace me. It was a burn as well; a memory, a tragedy, a sadness of losing him to uncured internal wounds after a foggy morning road accident.

Just like the February winter, when we feel the cold, not enough to tumble and tuck within layers of blankets, nor less to roam like a wild soul in the streets––February, the last traces of numbing chill––even the breeze didn't let me lose hope over an undecided journey. As if making me understand, the struggle was far from over, but at the same time, I was going to get through.

My trance of bliss was broken by the rhythmic footsteps, coming from the bottom stairs. The sounds had us both sitting upright in a snap. We acted in a much-needed haste and alert. I scooted closer to Siddhant and we both had our bags clutched tightly between us, legs wide apart in a protective stance, while hands fisted on the side and a calm "let's see" thought going afloat.

Possibly it was a subconscious reaction, emerging from the memories of news we had heard a few days back. A group of three or four dacoits roaming across the ghats of Kashi. Their news had traveled faster than the gasps. None knew where they came from, or where they went afterward; every midnight they would scatter around and snatch the belongings, sometimes leaving only a pair of pants on the unlucky ones who roamed for aesthetics or night-stays on the stairs. There had also been news about violence, those who defied the goons, or put up a strong fight had been slashed with an edged knife over their arms and chest. There was an unfaithful news of one death as well.

Eyes strained, trying to cut the darkness of distance, we sat with held breaths, until a harmless figure draped in yellow approached us. The confidence, experience, and comfort that engulfed us the moment the priest stood silently in front of us was palpable.

Bowing at the same time, we touched his feet with both our hands and joined our palms after touching our foreheads, muttering a whisper of pranam baba in the meanwhile. A sense of calmness and safety ran through me when he raised his hands and placed each on either of our shoulders.

A prominent purohit, our thoughts synced.

"Pranam, pranam. I'm Gyanesh Shastri, be at ease, kindly. There is no harm intended towards anyone here," he offered with a smile once he saw the underlying discomfort in our tightened limbs. "Could you both not find the hotels you're staying in? The shopkeeper over there," I glanced as he pointed towards someone behind me, and found the man I had bought water bottles from. The man joined his palms in a respectful gesture for Purohit ji, "he notified me about two wanderers, and here I came to scrutinize if you needed help."

Within two minutes, in quite an amazing manner, Siddhant and I shifted from gloom of loss to a hopeful, respectful persona, with the arrival of Shastri ji. He supposedly stood at the offset of middle age, possessing a slight hunch in his lower back. Although no traces of youthful, vibrant black could be noticed over his head, his face housed only a few wrinkles around his mouth and night sky-like dark eyes. Even from within such depth of black, he emitted nothing but acceptance and blessings.

"No, baba, we are merely trying to pass through this night. We shall be leaving early in dawn," Siddhant offered when a good few seconds of silence passed between us.

"This rush! Young eyes seek Benaras with such haste?" Shastri ji mused thoughtfully, and an odd glint of sadness gleamed upon his aging face. Under the moon's shimmer, his complexion remained slightly pale, yet he stood tall, with his shoulders wide, and hands locked behind his back.

This time I forced his stare to root upon me. "We are in no rush to explore Benaras. It was not even in the plans, nor do we intend to make any shift in them. We are simply passing the night, the next afternoon wouldn't be hosting us."

Only once the words left my mouth, did I realize how harshly I had dismissed the idea of being in that city. As if the thought of spending more time in Kashi would burn me anyhow. I held my silence.

To my surprise, Shastri ji, instead of asking something else, sat down on the stairs, with his back to us. His hands now rested on his knees, and his head tilted up towards the sky.

I and Siddhant followed, stepping down and sitting on a stair below his. It was instilled that sitting higher than those who are elder, and those whom we worship, was a sign of disrespect. How much we now believed in such liners was beyond discussion, but the limbs were habituated enough to not wait for the mind to give modified instructions.

A pregnant moment passed without a single utterance. Then, as if realizing a response was to be given, Shastri ji's calm, experienced poised voice floated around us, "this city never calls a casual wanderer in its abode, only a seeker and he who carries a depth of passion in his eyes is called here," he paused, took a brief breath, and concluded, "no one comes to Kashi until she calls them."

I had heard it often already, people longed to dissolve into nothingness in Benaras. I had heard many stories of madness about those who walked for days or even months, just to die by the steps of Manikarnika. Kashi, or Benaras as the crowd outside knew, controlled this vicious cycle of life and death. As for us, we were simply two outsiders who stepped by mistake. When it was a mistake, how could I believe this place controlled our destiny?

"Pass the night at the temple's guesthouse, then, in the morning you both may lead on your paths. I would not suggest resting here till dawn," as if tasting a sourness on the tongue, Shastri ji's voice wavered at the end. He resumed only after a good few blinks, "these ghats often sing the lullaby of lost souls, those who seek an entry into Benaras. Let them sing their pleas to Bhairav in silence."

Highly aware of the chill that crept down my spine, I felt no compulsion to deny his words. I didn't believe in the stories that were attached to Benaras; stories about rogue souls wandering across the ghats, in search of a place to belong. But I did know it was a faith of many, and I couldn't be as ignorant and disrespectful as to question their beliefs and faith. Additionally, I could by now see that Siddhant needed his space. He was still curling over and over in his mind, and I could no longer bear seeing him shattered over some hazy memories.

I accepted Shastri ji's offer on both of our behalves without taking a second to think.

##

The walk to the guesthouse was two minutes if I was right in my calculation. When I found myself walking in the middle, with Shastri ji leading us, and Siddhant following us numbly, a hopeful part of me that craved a way to repent, almost allegorically took that scene as a picture worth that chaotic journey. Shastri ji symbolized the mediator in that allegorical imagery, while I and Siddhant were among those lost souls who wandered and ached to find a place where we truly belonged.

The guesthouse was an old, but neatly maintained two-storey cubical building. The walls were of mud, even the doors and front windows held thick wood. The place challenged modernity and architecture in a way I found comical. I found myself rotating in my place to get a hold of the area in the dark, however much I could process. It was a narrow path that started opposite to the flow of magnetic Ganga, and from where the stairs of ghat dwindled into the water. The street had an aroma of wet mud and incense sticks mingling around. Almost all the houses comprised of muddy walls, and low, thick wooden gates. I itched for the light, so I could entertain my lenses with the clicks.

Feeling dejected over my failure to admire the street in its rawest beauty, I turned and focused on the guesthouse instead. Somewhere near, I could hear a melody soothingly replacing the silence of night. It was far, and almost intelligible, I let it go. Shastri Ji adjusted a small glass bulb by the main door, which spluttered to life and added more clarity to the outer area. I could've admired the place now, but I didn't turn.

"This was our ancestral place, which later on my father converted into a guesthouse. You needn't worry about the living compensation for the place, consider it as a stopage for temporary stay before you begin a long journey ahead."

Siddhant glanced nervously back and forth between the end of the street and the open door that lay in front of us. Shastri ji spoke in a manner that most of his words were lost on us. All we followed was how he pushed the door and it creaked open with a sound that might surely have startled the guests inside the house. He stepped over the threshold and motioned us to do the same. The similar assuring smile graced his face.

I waited for a silent confirmation from Siddhant, and we both entered with caution.

"All the rooms on the floor above are tidy and open, why not take any as you wish? Shall we resume our talk in the morning?" Shastri ji spoke calmly, an undertone of exhaustion rolled off his tongue. Before I could nod my approval, he continued, "I along with my daughter are across that open hall, the other side of this house which connects to the temple street. Speaking of her, I know she must be worrying about me."

The last part he spoke to himself than for us to hear. By that point, I was more disturbed by the fact of how easily this humble priest trusted two strangers to invite them into his ancestral house. I couldn't let my eyes flicker around to make the structure of the house, my eyes were more keen on studying the layers of Gyanesh Shastri and his mysteriously hopeful words. I wanted to say something, or maybe to ask, but once again my words were forced to remain within when a voice rose from the hall and the sound of anklets followed.

"Aapji, is that you?"

Subconsciously, I noticed the melodious voice from earlier had stopped and the night silence once again breathed heavily.

"Kashi," Shastri ji spoke in a manner that held much respect and admiration for that smiling face which in the coming days was going to upheaval the whole course of my misguided life.

In that moment, standing just inside the door of that old guesthouse, in the city of Benaras, I accepted my defeat.

I was drunk for the last time when I first saw Kashi.

Tomar baba tomake ashirbaad korte esechhen : Your father has come to bless you

pranaam baba : a way of showing respect and offering respectful greeting to an elder

Purohit : priest in basic sense

Bhairav : an intense form of Lord Shiva. In context of Kashi, or Benaras, Banaras, Varanasi - Bhairav is said to be the door guard of this city. No one can enter or leave Banaras without his permission.

Aapji: A way of calling father. There's a mini story behind this after which Kashi started calling her father as aapji.