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Antiquity aside, various modern ages seem to coexist here. Baba Vishwanath’s temple has an expansive, spanking new, 21st century corridor. Its high walls, with stone cut in rectangular patterns, also strangely remind you of Soviet architecture. The Banaras Hindu University exudes a century old Indo-Gothic charm. The Gyanvapi mosque’s 17th century architecture, of course, is often the subject of front-page headlines. Negotiating its place under the scorching sun, caught between Hindutva and high-rises, Varanasi balances itself between an old-world raison d’être and a newfound VIP-ism, like a trapeze artist.It’s an uneasy cohabitation. The new tourism boom has steadily encroached upon the old spiritual ambience, which is slowly fading away. Just like a lot of old India. In a 15-minute walk up from Dashaswamedh ghat alone, about 300 new guesthouses have come up to cater to the new rush of religious tourists—a good number of young among them—from Pune, Rajkot, Meerut, Coimbatore, even Seoul. Evening time, they settle on plastic chairs to witness a Ganga aarti through bulb-lit bamboo arches. This new spirituality is not quiet: mantras, bhajans and then the Maha Tandav Aarti ring out from modern music systems.
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A Date With The Present
