Varanasi: On the Banks of Eternity

Varanasi is often described as the world’s oldest living city, a place where time itself seems to pause. Known also as Kashi, “the Luminous,” it is said to have been founded by Lord Shiva, and for over 3,000 years its steps have echoed with the footsteps of pilgrims, poets, and seekers. Mark Twain once wrote, “Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.” Rudyard Kipling, too, called it “the most holy of holy cities.”

Here, the Ganges is not just a river—it is a goddess, a healer, and a witness to the endless cycle of life and death. At dawn, the water shimmers gold as bathers slip into its depths, whispering prayers carried away by the current. Washermen beat cloth on stone, chai vendors ladle steaming cups, and funeral pyres burn steadily at Manikarnika Ghat, where liberation is believed to be assured.

The ghats thrum with contrasts: children diving into the river with carefree joy, while ascetics in saffron robes sit cross-legged, eyes lined with ash, chanting softly into the rising sun.

When dusk falls, the city gathers for the Ganga Aarti. Bells clang, conch shells sound, and priests dressed in silk raise blazing lamps in slow, hypnotic arcs. The air fills with incense, the river mirrors the flames, and for a moment, the earthly and the divine seem to merge.

To wander through Varanasi is to breathe in incense and smoke, to hear the drumbeat of devotion and the murmur of the river—a city alive, eternal, and forever luminous.