An acquaintance of mine returned from his really short trip to Varanasi, and instantly felt himself to be an authority on the city. Saying that he was not exactly awed by the aura of the city would be a conscious introduction of ambiguity in the discourse. He found the roads narrow, the lanes dirty, crowds ubiquitous, noise raucous and people mostly (and to his dismay, happily) idle. His ire was specially reserved for those men with gamchha flung across their shoulders, ambling alone or in groups towards their favourite adda for their constitutional conversation and other leisure activities of the day.
Although he comes from a small city (from a city smaller than Varanasi, in fact), he fully belongs to his invented persona of a metro-dweller. A self-proclaimed self-made man, he does not want to be seen connected to his roots, to his small city, to his hell. Idling, for him, is a sin. It’s something others do, not people like him. Varanasi, for him, was some kind of hell, and those who belonged to that place (count me in) deserved to be there (alas! not ‘in’ this time).
I did not declare it in public, but my close friends know, I belong to my city, and have the mindset of a true Banarsi. I’ve been away from the city for full fourteen years, and nine months now, but the city has always been within me. To re-phrase it, I quote a great man:
You can take a Banarasi out of Banaras, you can’t take Banaras out of a Banarasi.
There are two kinds of people one can see idling in Varanasi: the permanent residents and the pilgrim/tourist. My angry friend was definitely talking about the gamchha carrying pukka Banarsi’s idleness. So, I’ll write about the same here. Our idle Banarsi is a common phenomenon in the city. His addas are many. You can find him (it’s mostly him, sometimes her) at a definite hour, day after day, summer, winter and during monsoon, at the same place, or within a definite radius from the original place, losing himself in his favourite activity.
The best time for such activities begins at around five late in the summer afternoon, or at around five, early in the winter evening. Five is not the exact time, it’s an approximation for the end of office hours for a working adult male. Addas are full of life and laughter and are alive till late into the night. Ghats of Varanasi, that connect the city with the river and provide an unbroken stretch of public space for most part of the year are definitely favourite choice for addas.
At more than eighty ghats of Varanasi, men, women and children assemble at their various times to enjoy their life in their own way. As mentioned earlier, working men in the evening, children after the school is over and women, for the morning bhajan etc. I still visit one of my favourite addas, as a non-participant, and am sometimes recognized by the regulars, just to confirm that not much has changed in my city. I still find a couple of hands busy with their moves on the chess board, and almost always, a large number of fans/observers/supporters cheering, hissing and yelling suggestions to their favourite player of the moment. Victory, even in a game of chess, is collective there, and loss is mourned by the whole side.
The lanes of Varanasi that run parallel to the ghats provide spots for addas too.
