Kashi Yatra - Part 2

I had ended the first part of the Kashi yatra writing about the boat ride by the side of the ghats and the evening ganga aarti. I forgot to mention the antics of the boatman. Our group had hired three boats. The boatmen were all Bengalis. They took us from Khidkiya ghat in the north till the last one in the south (Assi ghat) and then back to Dashashwamedh ghat just in time to view the Ganga aarti.

Our boatman was the most sociable of the lot. He was more than willing to regale us with stories of each ghat when we passed them. If he did not know the backstory of a particular ghat, he would dismiss that as an insignificant one!

When we reached Assi ghat, our boatman suddenly stripped to his undergarments and jumped right off the boat. He surfaced a few minutes later, calmly climbed back on and got dressed. As an afterthought he thought it better to explain to us that he took a bath since it was too hot.

5^th April

Thankfully unlike the day before, the wakeup call was at 03:45 AM, a relatively earthly hour!

The first stop for the day was the Kal Bhairav temple. Kal Bhairav is considered to be the protector (kotwal) of the city.

Outside, a baba remarked to us that darshan of Lord Vishwanath is not complete without paying respects to the Bhairava. Though we formed a queue, once inside it was quite disorderly as we got closer to the sanctum sanctorum. It was good to get darshan of the silver faced idol of Kal Bhairav but the commercialisation in the area inside the temple was not nice to see.

The next stop was the Maha Mritunjya mandir. This was less crowded and we had more space to settle down and meditate. Some of us got a chance to practice our yoga as well. 

Inside the temple complex, is the Dhanvantareshwar Koop (well). Legend has it that Dhanvantari (the celestial physician) had dropped various medicines/drugs like Mrit Sanjivini into this well.

The water from the well is supposed to have healing properties. I had two glasses of water from the well. It tasted normal.

Outside we found this baba who was more than happy to have his snap taken.

We headed back to the hotel for a late breakfast.

In the evening, we left for the Markandeya temple a bit away from Varanasi. From the main road, we travelled through villages and by the banks of the Ganga was situated this beautiful temple.

There was a huge ghat nearby and many of the group decided to have a bath first.

The river was quiet and calm – and clean too. As the evening wore on and the temperatures became bearable again, it was a serene atmosphere out in open by the banks of the Ganga.

6^th April

The plan was to visit a couple of Devi temples. We headed off to Vindhyachal – the temple of Vindhyavasini (around 2 hours away near Mirzapur) early in the morning (3:30 AM). We were expecting a rush in the Devi temple due to Navarathri but once we got there, we were pleasantly surprised to see that the crowd management was impressive.

Vindhyavasini Devi (Image from the internet)

Since darshan was completed quickly, the organisers decided to (after a quick breakfast) add another Devi temple  – Kali Khoh to the itenary. This temple is situated on top of a small hillock and here we had to take ‘special’ darshan – one of the local volunteers negotiated with the administrators and they took us in groups of 20 for darshan. I am sad to say money would definitely have exchanged hands.

Child dressed as Lord Shiva

On the way back, near the outskirts of the city we stopped at the Shool Tankeshwar Shiva temple again by the banks of the Ganga. Myth has it that Ganga was angry with Shiva for breaking her fall to the earth. She decided to get back at Shiva by destroying his favourite city (Kashi). As she approached with a violent force, Shiva threw his trishul into the ground at the entry point of Kashi (to the south).  Ganga slowed down and agreed to flow gently though Kashi.  Myth it may be but locals say that the force of the river considerably slows down as it approaches this area and from then on – till it exits Kashi on the north side, the river flows calmly!

It was a serene atmosphere by the river (in spite of the heat) and after darshan we headed back in time for lunch.

The organisers had booked in advance (online) for Saptarishi pooja in the evening at the Kashi Vishwanath temple. We reached early and settled down well before the allotted time. Though there was a huge crowd, we could get good darshan. Like the mangal aarti, the saptarshi pooja was also an incredible experience difficult to put into words. We also had a lot of quiet time for meditation. We reached the hotel pretty late – exhausted but really satisfied.

7^th April

This being the last day of the official yatra, the morning started with a short trip to the Mallikarjun mandir which was on top of a small hillock.

We had good darshan as there was no rush there. Some of us had time to settle down and meditate / do our practices.

We also got a chance to see the sunrise from a different perspective – from atop the hillock. As you can see from the skyline in the picture below, the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ coexist in modern day Varanasi 

As we were leaving, one of the local residents checked us out and left once he was satisifed that we were not going to hang around for too long!

The next and last stop was at the Baidyanath temple. Like the earlier temple, there were very few pligrims visting this early in the morning and we hung around for a few minutes after darshan. 

We headed back to the hotel and had a satsang/closing ceremony on the lawns. We were all appreciative of the organisers for their selfless efforts and patience. A few of the participants got emotional as we had bonded in the space of just four days. All in all, a very well organised and managed trip. We had such a good time that the four days had whizzed past quickly.

In the third and final part of this series, I will write a shorter post about the couple of days I got to spend on my own after the conducted trip was over. Hope you enjoyed reading the first two parts and will come back to read the final part of this series. 🙏