My Masaan 

“Musafir hain hum bhi 

Musafir ho tum bhi, 

Kisi modh pe phir mulakat hogi”

 The first time I ever truly felt Love was almost three years ago. Love, like an experience where there is no work done and all just keeps happening one after another. Uneventfully. I experienced this when I for the first time went to find my place in Banaras and came back having found My Self. Or perhaps I didn’t come back. I never will.

 This city is to me like God is to a true devotee. It is not the University where I studied calls me back or the friends I made. What calls me back to Banaras every day is the smell of the city, the smell of fresh and rotten flowers together. The chilly breeze in the Ghats, the satisfied aftertaste of chats, the strangers, the travelers, the stories more precious than all the books in my shelf at home and the feeling of Home and oneness. Never before had I felt that a place could communicate.

 Banaras is my city of Learning and Un-learning. It’s a place where I learned to live, to build a home. I learned how to find attachments in detachments. There were evenings when I sat at Harishchandra Ghat for hours and gazed at bodies being cremated and in those moments I felt my roots delving deep into the Earth. Banaras is that feeling of a hyphen where you let go while holding tight.

 I had left for Banaras two days after Dadu died. Dadu being someone I grew up with made it hard for me to believe the fact that I will not be seeing him again.  Banaras made the hardest chapter of my life the most beautiful one by telling me that I didn’t have to believe in Dadu’s death. He resides in My Banaras.

 Banaras is a touristy city but I might be the worst person to describe the city through that lens. All this while I have just known the Banaras that came to me or perhaps was always within me silently. Banaras is a human being that ceases to be human being. I believe it is not just one city, it is a different city to each who has experienced the city. Banaras is an experience that never fades away. 

“Yahan aana asan hain, yahan se jaana mushkil…”