My Maiden Visit to Banaras

-          Manprasad Subba

 

It was already dusk when Devkumar and I boarded the GL Express at Siliguri North Station. We were perspiring in the sweltering heat of early September. With virtually no experience of train-journey, we would have hardly been able to get into the bursting compartment of the train without the help of two red uniformed coolies, one pulling us from inside while the other pushing from behind. They charged us certain amount of money for this job. They had, we didn’t know how, managed to get for us the window-side seats facing each other. As the train, with a sudden jerk, started moving, Devkumar with a shriek abruptly took his hand off the window bar. What’s the matter? Someone from outside had attempted to snatch his wrist watch. Had we then had the knowledge of making reservation for berth in a Sleeper Coach, we would not have to be cramped in the general compartment with no space to lie down on.    

 

     ‘Express’ proved but a misnomer as it moved so sluggishly that it took nearly twenty hours to reach Chhapra where we had to disembark and get into a local train to Varanasi. It was past one in the afternoon when we took seats in a steam engine locomotive that fumed dark smoke full of coal-grit. Facing us were seated two young white-skinned European tourists. There were a few other passengers in that part of the compartment. The foreigners in front of us talked with each other in a language which we could not understand at all. One with somewhat unruly golden moustache glanced at me quite smilingly.  

 

     ‘Which country are you from?’ I initiated the conversation. They were from West Germany. (Two Germanys, partitioned after the World War II, were yet to be reunified. October 1990 when reunification took place was still 11 years away from the time we met in the train.) The other fellow did show little interest to get into conversation. It may be because of the language problem just as my friend also remained uncommunicative to them because of his inability to express himself in English. Norbert Ostendorf was the name of the one with the moustache who spoke English, although a little haltingly. Nor had I acquired the desired fluency. Yet, our conversation moved on and on until the train trundled into the Varanasi Cantt. Station. As we got down from the train, we shook our hands and hoped to meet again while in Varanasi. We had even exchanged our postal addresses during our chat in the train.    

 

     #

     Our mission to Banaras (Varanasi or Kashi) was to get printed a book of mine, a novella – my first ever book. And my boyhood friend Devkumar Pradhan had shown enthusiasm to be its publisher. It was the time when Banaras played quite a significant role in the printing business. Most of the Nepali books and periodicals had in their colophon the names of the press with different addresses in the city of Varanasi. Depending on a little bit of information about one Madhav Mudranalaya that was believed to have specialized in printing Nepali books, we took a rickshaw to the location called Baansfatak, Vishwanath Gali. It was already dark when we, meandering through the intriguing narrow gali flanked by the rows of brightly lit stalls of shops, discovered the right address somewhere deep behind the left flank of the gali. Through a gap at one point of the gali we were led into the interior part of a four-storied ancient building with a considerably broad square courtyard in the middle. Right from the gap at the gali we had to pass through a series of low-height doors, one after another, that at first left us quite perplexed. Those door-like gates were so low that even the persons of average Gorkha height like us had to lower the heads while passing through them. We were received by Prakash Dhawan, the eldest son of senior Dhawan, the proprietor of the Madhav Mudranalaya and were given a bed in a dungeon-like room on the ground floor.

 

     Prakash took the manuscript from me, flipped through the leaves filled with the rows of words written in my own neat hand. He, uttering some printer’s jargons, did not waste time in making a deal with us: In what shape do you want your book to be printed? Double crown? Double demy? And the letter size? 12 point, 14 point, 16 point? Your book will be of less than five ‘farma’.     

     Looking at him gawkily for a couple of seconds, I wanted him to explain what he meant by all those technical words. By showing me two books in different shapes, he made me understand the meaning of double crown and double demy. Likewise, he showed me different sizes of letters that had their names in different number. And I let him know my preference concerning the shape of the book and size of the letters. I showed him also the cover design I myself had prepared that showed two human figures in symbolic forms painted in black with the bold yellow background. On the top of the symbolic figures was the title of the book – Tyo Modsamma Pugeko Manchhe which may be loosely translated as The Man Who Has Reached That Bend. A long name for a short novel, eh!    

     “Cover design will go to the block maker,” he said.       

     “Will it be the same as it is?” I sounded a bit concerned.

     “Yes, it will be exactly the same. Even better. No need to worry.”

 

     And the main deal was struck: total cost, advance payment etc. And the conversation that followed was about the final delivery of the book.

     -How many days will it take to complete the book? We want to go back carrying at least a couple of dozen with us.  

     -The press is already hard-pressed with the previous orders. It may take a little longer than a fortnight.

     -We cannot stay that long. We came to you with the hope that we would be able to be back with the book in a week.

     -No, you need not stay that long. I will start your work from tomorrow itself. Once you are done with the final proof reading, you may leave. The whole lot of book will be sent by transport to be delivered at Darjeeling.

     But I was a bit too impatient to see my handwritten manuscript transformed into a book with all the elegance that a well produced book does have. We insisted that the book be delivered in a week and he assured us he would do everything possible.    .

 

       In the morning of the first day in Banaras we walked down to the Dasashwamedh Ghat and well before reaching the flight of sandstone steps that led down to the river, I was wonderstruck by the naked beauty of the river Ganges and the full view of the sandy undulating land on the other side that stretched endlessly towards dark green horizon. The whole view revealed itself so suddenly that I stood still in awe.  ‘Wow!’ was the only word that escaped from within me. That spellbinding scene still re-appears alive before my eyes whenever I think of the Ganges. As we leisurely descended the steps that ran horizontally all along the bank of the river, we were first greeted in English by some boatmen – ‘Hello sir, boat? Boating?’ Showing indifference to them, we walked down and along the long rows of steps. These steps of heavy sandstone blocks, joined with each other with iron clamps, are, in fact, also the formidable embankment that saves the riverside of the city from erosion. The steps rose from below the edge of the river up into the ascending alleys between multi-storied buildings that lined all along from one end of the city to the other end stretching several kilometers. While looking up from below, the flights of steps seemed to be branching up and eerily disappearing into mystical dark spaces between the soaring mansions. In between some long lines of steps there were broad spaces like terraces which were dotted with some tiny stalls of shops that sold tea, biscuits, pea-nuts, paan, cigarettes, soaps and the likes.

 

       At Dashashwamedh ghat, on a terrace two or three steps above from the edge of the river a few Hindu priests, their foreheads striped from one end to the other with white and brown sandalwood paste, were seated cross-legged in a row under their individual palm-leaf umbrella-sheds that rested slantingly on the bamboo poles. A few of them seemed busy with their priestly business while some were looking intently for their prospective customers around. While walking along the embankment Norbert and his friend, in Indian loose casual attire, were seen at a distance. Our eyes met, smiles flashed, we waved our hands to each other and they walked on to their own direction while we two took a boat. It was for the first time in life that we were sailing a boat. The boatman, in his past mid-twenties like us, helped us to get onto the boat and started rowing downstream telling us about the places close by: this is Manikarnika Ghat where funeral pyres never go out. And we turn our heads toward four-five burning pyres; and five or six bodies draped in yellow or white shrouds awaiting their turn lay at one side seemingly with no one to see them off before their mortal remains were offered to the fire-god. I had never felt life to be so worthless.

 

       Boat is gliding softly with the gentle sound of splash produced by the oar. ‘Look up there. There stands the Nepali Mandir built by some maharaja of Nepal.’ And we see a wooden structure in the midst of the cluster of houses. ‘Ek din januparchha tyahan,’ (We should go there one day.), say I to Dev and he nods. And the boat starts turning towards the right and in the midstream, then we see the boatman working to sail the boat upstream. I immensely enjoy the serenity of the river, its openness, its nakedness, dipping the hand in the cool water, taking the water in cupped hand, being caressed by the cool breeze. Green on the wavy surface, but crystalline while taken in hand, the river was quite unmindful of its being revered as holy or despised as unclean. And suddenly my eyes catch a dark lump of something unrecognizable floating on the surface, a couple of crows on it. ‘Look! What’s that?’  The boatman turns his head towards the direction my eyes curiously staring at. ‘It’s the half-burnt human body from the pyre,’ answers the boatman. I feel something crumble deep in me. As the boat sailed further up, the panoramic view of Varanasi all along the bow-shaped bank on the other side of the Ganges appears so fascinating that anyone, even with a tiny bit of sense of beauty, can be attracted to it. The boat moved further up, to the Harishchandra ghat and a little further up. The ghat reminds us of Harishchandra’s story that we read in our Third or Fourth Grade in school. From there the boat takes a curve and glides downstream. The boatman points to a building and says, ‘If you like to purchase Banarasi silk saris I can take you there where you will find original ones at much lower rate than in the market.’ We show little interest in it and the boat moves a little faster. When we were closer to the Dashashwamedh ghat from where we took the boat, the crowd of the people taking Ganga snan (holy dip in the Ganga water) had doubled. Men in knickers and women in blouse and sari, young girls in salwar-kurtha made the conglomeration of bathers a spectacle. I wondered how those women bathe with their clothes on, how they soaped their bodies. But they were there dipping in the holy water of the Ganga more to be mystically purified than washing their physical bodies clean. Faith is always immune to rationality. 

 

       When we were back to the press it was already past ten. Office-cum-composition section was on the first floor. We saw eight or ten compositors, each sitting in front of the broad wooden frame that had scores of tiny pigeonhole-like square chambers filled with steel letters. Among them three compositors were picking up letters to compose words and lines from the leaves of my manuscript. It was quite amusing to see their fingers picking up each letter just the way the fowls pecked at the grains of wheat. By the evening we were given a few pages of galley proof. I was quite excited to see the printed pages of my novel. I had no idea how to read proof copy, how to mark the errors and show the correct form of the words or sentences. Prakash taught me what and how to use signs while marking the words to be corrected, deleted or inserted. I was being swayed by a kind of tickling sensation while seeing the lines now transformed into their printed forms, the words just a day before had been lying hidden in a dark dungeon of a cover-file in their primitive forms yearning for the light of the day.

     ‘Read the proof carefully, without hurrying,’ said Prakash to me.

     In five or six days we had finished the task of reading all the proof copies. One day he took us to the block maker and there we knew all about what a printing block was. It was made with a kind of heavy material.

     The Madhav Mudranalaya, in fact, had no printing press of its own. It only worked with the tiny metal letters in reverse forms which the compositors put to the rows of line and to the shape of pages. The pages then were skillfully arranged into a frame, colloquially called farma, of eight or sixteen pages and tied all around with string to make it stay intact. Pages of the metal letters being in reverse forms as the images in mirror needed very skilled and experienced hand to correctly arrange them in a frame. The farma thus readied was sent to the printing press. Heavy metal frame put on a metal tray was usually carried off by a porter. My face would grimace seeing him balance the load on his head with a short groan. He carried such loads five or six times a day. At times, rickshaw-cart used to be hired to carry three or four frames at a time.

     The compositors hired at the Mudranalaya mostly commuted on bicycle all the way from the far-flung suburbs of the city. They could not even correctly pronounce or understand Nepali words which they gave shape with the steel letters in reverse shapes. Let alone the words or sentences in English of which their knowledge was up to the level of alphabets. It was an irony of their profession that they, day after day, arranged the lines in a frame knowing nothing what the lines meant. [Today when entire printing technology has shifted to an absolutely different plane, like to a strange planet, I often think of those poor compositors who worked at meager wage: What other kind of works could they have picked up when digital technology irreversibly rendered them obsolete? They had now become like the typewriters replaced by the desk-top computer or a laptop. ] 

     *

     During our stay at the Madhav Mudranalaya we got acquainted with some of the writers and proof readers who use to come to the Mudranalaya. One such proof reader, who looked quite docile and humble and was from Nepal, then studying at the Sampurnananda Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya in Varanasi, happened to grow more than an acquaintance to us. At this time when I am writing this reminiscence his name is eluding my memory while his sober looks and gentle demeanour are quite vivid to my eyes. He one day wanted us to go with him to a place somewhere in the city to meet B. P. Koirala, a great name both in Nepali literature and politics, at his residence where he was expected to meet his Benaras-based loyal supporters. I, a fan of his short-stories and novels, was greatly fascinated by the very name of BP Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala, the name that sent pleasant ripples in my mind. Also I already knew something about his indefatigable political fight against the monarchical government of Nepal. As we reached his modest bungalow a little more than two dozen of his fans were already there – some were on chairs and stools, some were sitting on the grassy lawn and some stood behind them. The revered leader, lean and thin in spotless white kurta-pyjama, his bespectacled face beaming with smile, sat on a cushioned wooden chair on the broad veranda, some men sat on the floor at the right and left flank of him. Most of the people gathered there were young except a few middle aged. Devkumar and I were introduced by our friend. He, smilingly and somewhat curiously glanced at us, ‘So you are from Darjeeling! What’s the news from there?’ His voice was not that smooth due to his throat operation that was done for something malignant in his throat.

     ‘There is a movement for the constitutional recognition of Nepali language.’ I answered.

     ‘That’s good.’ He said.

      Then he spoke to his Nepalese supporters about the political scenario prevailing at that time in Nepal. Here we were face to face with that charismatic personality who, besides being a trend setter in Nepali fiction writing, sacrificed the better part of his life in the untiring struggle to bring about democratic change in Nepal. Having been released from the secluded internment for several years in his own country, he was now living in exile. He unquestionably commanded a great respect from the people in his country.

       *

        Our proof-reader friend played the role of a guide to us while visiting a couple of sites in and around the city. Among the sites visited then, Saranath, eleven kilometers from the periphery of the city, so enamoured me that in my every subsequent trip to Varanasi – more than twelve times so far -- I have never failed to be there at least for a few hours each time.

       Our visit to Nepali Mandir, meandering through the intriguing narrow alleys, is also not less memorable. Not-so-well-cared-but-neat-and-clean Nepali Mandir is structured in the style of the Pashupatinath temple of Kathmandu. Its inward-sloping wooden rafters on all four sides have the carvings depicting erotic figures just as those on the rafters of Pashupatinath temple. Westerners looked quite perplexed to see such figures on the exterior part of the earthly abode of God. We, too, were not less amusingly perplexed. But today as I visualize those libidinal depictions I think that they symbolize the wide gaping moat of sensual desires all around, without crossing which one cannot attain the spiritual blissfulness.   

       The descending concrete stairway of the Mandir led to the river Ganga.  

       So fascinated we were with the Ganga that we loved to spend each morning and each evening time strolling along or sitting on the steps of Ghats. Boating in the evening, after sunset, did give a unique and sublime pleasure. Relieved from the morning crowd of bathers and devotees, the entire ambience along the river would be calm and quiet, soothing and serene. Some sadhus with matted hairs bundled on the top of head or left streaming down, sitting cross-legged in a circle, could be seen smoking marijuana in an earthen chilim (smoking pipe), which, after drawing a lungful of smoke, they would pass on around; A flute seller, with a big jhola stuffed with several dozens of flutes of various sizes slung across his shoulder, a cheap kind of hat on his head, would play a bass flute producing a deep, gurgling melody that made the dusk more enveloping, more tangible.

       [However, in my last visit six-seven years ago, I found the serenity of the Dashashwamedh ghat in the evening described as above completely torn in shreds by the surging crowd of the people who vied for space on the rows of steps to witness the spectacle of Aarti (a prayer ceremony) in which a dozen young yogi-like Aarti performers stood in symmetrical action, in their hands huge diya-lamps the handles of which were in stylish twists and turns. Devotional songs blaring through the loudspeakers would rather arouse the devotee’s frenzy than devotional feelings and was perfectly commensurate with the teeming people. This Aarti performance, named Ganga Aarti, takes place every evening nowadays.]           

      

       *

       Another manuscript of mine -- the first ever collection of my poems written in the early and mid seventies -- had actually reached Banaras a year earlier. Mr. Sawar Agrawal of the Shyam Brothers Publication had apprised me that the printing work relating to the manuscript was still lying pending with the Bhola Yantralaya at Nadesar in want of Nepali proof reader and since I was going to Banaras he asked me to go there and see the proof myself. One day, we took a rickshaw to Nadesar, a place at the outskirt of the city. It took almost forty-five minutes to reach there. In a peaceful rural ambience stood a spacious two storied brick house, the ground floor accommodated a heavy printing machine, on the facing side of which a stack of broad sheets of paper was put in place from where the machine, while operating, picked one sheet of paper at every forward movement and when every backward movement dropped the paper-sheet on the other end of the machine the paper on one side had the impression of print neatly spaced in sixteen pages. It took only a few seconds to complete one forward-and-backward movement. On the upper floor there was the office at one end with a table and a few chairs and the bigger space was occupied by a host of compositors. Mr. Bhola, the owner of the press, attired in white loose pyjama- kurta and sleeveless jawahar coat, welcomed us with folded hands and a wide smile, led us to upstairs, offered water in tall steel glasses and then tea was brought in shorter steel glasses. He produced from somewhere a cover- file on the front cover of which was written in calligraphic style – Biblyanto Yugbhitra Cartoon Manchheharu. It was my hand, of course. With the manuscript were the pinned-up pages of galley proof.  

       And in two days when finally I finished reading proof I added a short Author’s Note that begins thus: This book was expected to come out in the previous year itself but was delayed at the press for some technical reason, and now it, along with my novelette Tyo Modsamma Pugeko Manchhe, is coming into the light of publication and they are to me like twin son and daughter.’

      

       With the final proof-reading of the novella finished, printing order given and the sample of cover design also okayed, we had no other business to stay on in Banaras. Prakash convinced us that he would send the book (1000 copies) by road / railway- transport to be delivered at Darjeeling within a fortnight. And he advised us to take reservation ticket for the North-east Express that would leave Mughalsarai at four in the afternoon and reach the NJP junction before dawn. Railway reservation ticket could be availed even an hour before departure time of the train, Prakash told us. In the morning of the day we were to leave we wanted to have the joy of boating one last time before leaving, and while sailing downstream from a particular point the boatman asked us if we would like to see the Banarasi sari. And anchoring his boat near a ghat, he led us to a river-side building. After climbing two flights of steps we were in a cloth store awash with half a dozen of tube-light. There were a couple of other customers. One of the two salesmen turned toward us and unfurled varieties of Banarasi sari, price of which ranged from Rs. 200/ to 10,000/. Forty-one years ago Rs. 200/ was also not a too small a sum. Having the pleasure of seeing several varieties, we settled with the ones around Rs. 250 to 300. Boatman must have got his commission from the salesman. In the market around Dashashwamedh Chowk and Bishwanath gali we bought some other smaller gifts. It was past noon when we hired an auto-rickshaw for Mughalsarai, a small town on the other flank of the river Ganges. The broad highway ran along the outer edge of the city and our dwarfish hunchbacked Auto, negotiating with the aggressively roaring trucks and buses, approaching from the opposite direction and those chasing from behind, it brought itself out on the long steel bridge over the mighty river. The bridge is also known as Double Decker Bridge. The upper Decker is the black-topped wide road while the lower Decker carries the railway trains running from both ends of the bridge.

     

        It was almost 2 o’clock when our Auto finally stopped at the front yard of the long station building. Soon after we got onto the smooth floor of the station, Devkumar joined the short queue of seven-eight men and a little later some more men stood behind him. Then came Devkumar’s turn to stand face-to-face with the man behind the iron-barred counter and give description for the reservation and make payment for both of us. He thrust his right hand into the back pocket of his pant to get the wallet, and next moment I saw his left hand fumbling in the other back pocket, then both hands at a time into the two side-pockets. And turning his head toward me he, a bit nervous, said, ‘I’m not getting my wallet. Give me for the time being fifty rupees.’ And that was the whole amount of money then left with me. Having thus secured the tickets for the sleeper coach, we started rummaging our bags but in vain, and he shoved his hands again into all the pockets of his pant and shirt and the hands seemed to be more dreadfully barren. We could do nothing but to accept the cruel fact that the wallet was gone, with no hope of retrieval at all. Now rendered absolutely broke, we wanted to sell some of our things: Dev tried to sell his Ray Ban sunglass while I wanted to part with my Seiko wrist watch. But alas! We could find no taker. A huge clock on the station wall struck 3:30 p.m. and we had to prepare ourselves to board the train. As the train entered the platform, there was no rush to get into the reservation compartment. We settled down on our seats. Opposite to us was a young European tourist, with a bulky book in his hand. He might have boarded the train at Delhi.

   

       Minutes after the train pulled out of the platform a man in sky blue shirt came to us to take order for dinner. Dev clumsily shook his head to left to right to left. I also answered in the same sign language when asked about the dinner. The European tourist, engrossed in his book, did not look up to answer the waiter. A little later a tea seller passed through the passage blaring in his typical vocal cord - chai.. chaai.. Usually it was tea-time for us but then we had to observe forced fasting. Comfort of the sleeper class of the train was like an irony to us. The sun was going down the distant horizon. Vast expanse of fields was rushing past. And dusk grew from grey to dark and soon the whole world was enveloped by darkness. It was as if even the cost-free pleasure of watching the outside world through the railway window was withdrawn from us. The train sped triumphantly piercing the darkness. With spirits dropped low, we spoke scantily with each other. Our usual chat that would be a blend of different subjects intertwined with laughter, regrets, excitement, curiosity, had now deserted us. Our white-skinned co-passenger unzipped his bag and took out a bunch of bananas and started eating, his eyes still on the book held by the other hand. One after another he ate five-six bananas in all. My stomach was revolting. After sometime the tourist straightened his legs on the lower berth leaning his back on the shuttered window. In a while he would be lying in a sleeping posture. I lay on the middle berth while Dev stretched himself on the other lower berth. Eyes wide awake all the while, I would now read the ceiling of the upper berth overhead or the fans on the ceiling of the train, now turning to the partisan of the compartment or to the empty space between the berths. Shutting the eyes tight could not catch the sleep. Now tossing and turning, now lying still, I do not know when I somehow fell asleep for an hour or two. Even that short period of sleep was not undisturbed by sudden loud rattling sound produced by the iron wheels grinding on the steel bridges.

 

       When the train gradually slowed down and the lamp-posts flicked past we heard someone in the adjacent compartment speak in Hindi – NJP pahunch gaye hain. I glanced at my watch – five minutes to three. It was platform no. 2 attached to the hind side of the station building with several offices from one end to the other. At that odd hour of pre-dawn we, rendered penniless, literally had nowhere to go. How to reach Darjeeling? The question sat heavy on our head. We seated ourselves on a wooden settle in front of a tea-stall that was already busy selling hot tea and biscuits. My right hand quietly pushed itself into the back pocket of my pant and in a while was out with a coin of athaana, 50 paise.

       ‘DK, do you like to have a cup of tea?’

       ‘No, I don’t. You have.’

       And I took a cup of steaming hot tea. It was, in fact, not a cup but a small glass. From the fifty paise the tea vendor returned to me the small coin of charaana, twenty-five paise. I felt every sip of hot tea going through my throat all the way down to stomach.

       Time moved at a snail’s pace. It seemed darkness would never lift. How to reach Darjeeling? Let alone Darjeeling, we had no way even to reach Siliguri.

       ‘As soon as there is morning light, we shall exit from here and look for the public vehicle for Darjeeling.’ I said to DK, ‘And let us request the driver to wait for our fare until we reach Darjeeling. We should tell him everything about the plight we have fallen in.’

       ‘Let’s try.’ Says DK, quite dispiritedly.

       As the darkness finally dissipated, we brought ourselves outside in the open space where a few Landrovers were standing. One, we noticed, was from Darjeeling. I approached the driver and told him everything about our journey. He looked at us, perhaps at our appearance, our demeanour and said, ‘Okay, you may take two back seats.’

      We felt greatly relieved.

      Some more passengers came up, almost full to the capacity, and in a quarter of an hour the driver started the Landrover that sped towards Siliguri and through Sukna moved winding along the gently ascending Hill Cart Road girdling the rising hills. Somewhere in the midway the vehicle stopped for a break in front of a roadside eatery. Driver and some passengers entered there for tea and snacks. Dev and I remained stuck to the seat. When, at long last, the vehicle entered the Darjeeling town, both of us, sticking our heads through the open space, were intently looking for any of our acquaintances, friends or relatives. As we arrived at the point of crossroads near the western edge of Chowk Bazar we asked the driver to stop and he parked in front of Bharat Hair-cutting Saloon. Before we got off the vehicle both of us saw Balaram daju, DK’s elder cousin brother walking that way.

       ‘Daju!’ DK called out, his eyes now glittering.

       Daju looked at us and smiled. ‘Arre! Arrived from Banaras!’

       ‘First of all, give us some money’, Dev spoke, ‘The driver is waiting there for our taxi fare.’

       Both of us thanked the driver profusely.

       Balaram daju was curious to know what the matter was and we told him everything about our return journey. He gave us some more money and said, grinning –‘Go to a nearby restaurant and have to your fill.’

      We, too, with our parched lips, smiled to him, from ear to ear.

      _______________________

·         November 8 – 10 / 2020.                                                     

                                    ‘