Oldest living City in the World

Varanasi (also called Benares) is the oldest living city in the world.
I lived and worked in Varanasi for two years, but that was over 25 years ago.

After that, I have visited Varanasi on and off.

Varanasi has changed, as all modern cities have, for the worse.
In those days, we lived in a small apartment, close to Dasashwamedh Ghat, the most popular ghat (bank) of the river Ganges.

We used to drop our two sons at the bus stop for their school bus to pick them up, walk down to the Ganges river every morning, stroll along the ghats (all the ghats are connected to each other) and meander through the narrow lanes bordering the river.

The morning walks used be really fascinating.

We would pass small shops selling all kinds of colourful merchandise.

Bulls sitting or standing in the narrow lanes completing blocking the way.

But they neither disturbed any one nor felt the least disturbed when any one pulled them or pushed them to one side to pass through.

Lots of temples, pundits (priests), devotees, pilgrims, tourists and mere idlers like us.
The most fascinating thing about Varanasi was that no one seemed to be in a hurry.

Everyone had plenty of time to stand and stare and enjoy life.

Even many of those who had to go to office, ritually went to the river every morning, did some exercises, had an oil massage, took a dip in the holy river and visited one of the numerous temples.

So deep was this practice imbibed in many, that if they were in Varanasi, it was impossible to wean them away from this morning ritual.

For them, this was the most essential part of life.
Once we had a very strange experience.

My wife fell sick for quite a few days.

We could not go down to the river.

Then a strange thing happened.

It suddenly started raining.

And the river started swelling.

The area started getting flooded.

The river crossed its banks and came right up to the place where we stayed.

For some time, we sat with our feet immersed in the water.

After that, the water gradually receded.

This could be pure coincidence.

But someone had predicted that since we were not able to go to the river, the river would come to us.
History

There is no doubt that Varanasi is a very ancient town. It is much older than Rome.Old Rome has gone down the pages of history.

But Varanasi has not only survived, but prospered.
According to mythology, Varanasi was created by Lord Shiva.

We find mention of Varanasi in the epic Mahabharata and in our ancient scripture Skanda Purana.
Buddha arrived in Sarnath on the outskirts of Varanasi in 500 BC.

Even then it was a prosperous city.
The original name of Varanasi was Kashi from the word ‘Kasha’ meaning bright.

The present name is a combination of two words – Varuna and Assi, the two rivers on the north and south of Varanasi.
Even now, many Hindus believe that if they die in Varanasi, they will reach Heaven.

There are a number of old homes whether the aged come to live and spend their last days.

Culture
Varanasi has given the world its unique style of classical Hindustani music and has produced such eminent poets, writers and musicians as Kabir, Ravi Das, Munshi Premchand, Jaishankar Prasad, Acharya Ram Chandra Shukla, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Hariprasad Chaurasia and Ustad Bismillah Khan.
Tulsidas wrote his Ramcharitmanas here.

Gautam Buddha gave his first sermon at Sarnath.
What to see
Temples
Varanasi is a city of temples.

Kashi Vishwanath Temple, the shrine of Jyotirlinga, is the most sacred shrine of Lord Shiva in India.

The original temple was destroyed by Emperor Aurangzeb who built a mosque in its place.

The present temple was rebuilt near the mosque in 1780 by Maharani Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore.

In 1839, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the ruler of Punjab, donated gold to guilt the two domes of the temple with gold.
The Ghats

There are several interconnected ghats along the river.

Visit them in the morning or evening.

You will sense the fervour of the place.
Gyan Vapi Mosque

This mosque was constructed in the 17th century on the old temple by Emperor Aurangazeb.
Banaras Hindu University

The sprawling Banaras Hindu University is a great centre of higher education.

It is the largest residential university in India and the only university with a Hindu temple inside.

Man Mandir
The old palace of the Maharaja of Jaipur with a astronomical observatory.
Sarnath (10 kms from Varanasi)

Buddha gave his first sermon here.

The 110 ft. tall Damekh Stupa marks the place where Buddha preached his first sermon.

Later, Mauryan Emperor Ashoka erected magnificent stupas and other buildings and the famous stone pillar.

This place is visited by Buddhists from all over the world.
Reaching there
Air

Varanasi has an airport with direct flights from New Delhi, Kolkatta, Mumbai and other places.
Rail

Varanasi is an important railway station.

The city is linked by trains with all metros and major cities across the country – New Delhi (760 Kms.), Mumbai (1509 Kms.), Kolkatta (735 Kms.), Chennai (1970 Kms.), Lucknow (286 Kms.).

Road

Varanasi is connected with all the major cities by good motorable, all-weather roads.
Best Season
Varanasi is hot in summer.

The best time to visit Varanasi is between September and November because Varanasi celebrates a lot of festivals during this period.

Recommendation

Visit the oldest living city in the world.

Perhaps you will share the same feeling which brought Gautam Buddha to this place.

Varanasi is famous for its silk zaree saris (silk saree embroidered with pure gold thread) and woollen carpets.

But purchase from a respectable shop.

Varanasi is equally famous for its cheats.

a mixture of the old British Raj and modern India

Calcutta has given four Nobel laureates to the world – Ronald Ross, Rabindranath Tagore, Mother Teresa and Amartya Sen.

I had my entire schooling and college education in this city.
I also spent the first 15 years of my service life here.
I have been visiting Calcutta at least twice every year.

Change of Name

I deeply hate the change of names – of cities, of roads and even individuals.
I had a colleague from Sultanpur, U.P. whose name was Jokhu Ram.
A simple, traditional, Indian village name.
One fine morning, he became Eklavya Saroj.
Another colleague, Bhullan Singh from Meerut, suddenly became Sisir Kumar.

Theatre Road in Calcutta suddenly became Shakespeare Sarani.
One day, I found myself standing on Shakespeare Sarani asking everyone where Shakespear Sarani was.
Surprisingly, no one seemed to know.
It took a lot of time and effort to find out that I was standing on Shakespeare Sarani!

Then Calcutta became Kolkata, and another city Bombay became Mumbai.
One day, in Bombay, I wanted to travel from Bandra to VT (Victoria Terminus) by a local train. I purchased a ticket and went to the designated platform.
I looked up at the indicators, and to my surprise found that the train was not going to VT, but to CST.
I asked a fellow passenger if I was standing on the wrong platform.
It took some time before both of us found out that VT had become CST (Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus).

The change of name can create far more serious complications.
A friend in New York went to an airlines office to book a ticket to Mumbai.
The lady there told him that there were no flights to Mumbai.
He returned home, called up India, and only after that could he book his tickets.
The reason was that the airlines office records still mentioned Bombay.
Therefore, according to their records, there was no airport called Mumbai.

I detest change of names for more reasons.
For one, the new names are always a wee bit more complicated and difficult to pronounce. Secondly, the change of name always involves huge expenditure.
The old letter pads, envelopes and stationary all have to be thrown away.
All the sign boards have to be changed.

It is a colossal waste of money – lots of money – which could be far better utilized in providing food, medicine and education – basic amenities which our people badly need.

All said and done, decisions to change names are taken by politicians in their political interest. Who said politicians work for the national interest?
They work for their political interest.
When one state or government changes the name of its city or road, other states follow the foot prints in the sand of time.

Good Old Calcutta

Back to the good old Calcutta.
Even now I remember the good old school and college days.

Just to recall one episode…….Half a century back, I was a small student.
I was in Class 5 in a co-educational school.
It was basically a girls school, but probably due to shortage of girl students in those days, boys were allowed to study up to Class 5.
In Class 5, we were three boys amidst a bunch of girls.
The students had to sit in wooden desks – 3 to a desk.
We three boys shared one bench.
If the teacher found any of us talking, or if we had not done our homework, or did anything punishable, the errant boy was made to sit between two girls.

I wonder which teacher today would even dream of giving such a wonderful punishment.
And some of the girls were carbon copies of Hema Malini and Madhubala.

There were, and still are, so many wonderful places to see in Calcutta.
I used to spend my Sundays and holidays exploring them.

History

Kolkata (or Calcutta) does not have a glorious old history like Delhi.
It is a relatively new city – merely a little more than three hundred years old.

Who founded Calcutta?
Until recently, the credit was given to Job Charnock.
August 24, 1690, the day Charnock landed in India, was observed as Calcutta’s foundation day.

Believe it or not, Calcutta High Court caught history by its horns, shook it wildly and re wrote it.
In a writ petiton, a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court found that the Sabarno Roy Chowdhury family got zamindari (land ownership rights) of Sutani, Govindapur and Kalikata (three villages) in 1608; that Job Charnock landed in Sutani village on August 24, 1690 and died in 1693.
But the British received the tenancy rights of Kalikata, Sutani and Govindapur only on November 10, 1698 – after Job Charnock’s death.
Therefore, Job Charnock was not the founder of Kolkata.

The Calcutta High Court directed the Government to change all government records and history books accordingly.

Prior to Charnock’s arrival in 1690, Calcutta was only a village.
The capital of Bengal was Murshidabad, 100 kms north of Calcutta.

In 1686, the Mughals permitted the East India Company to set up a base at Sutanati, Govindpur and Kalikata.
The British abandoned their trading post in Hooghly and shifted here.

They built the Old Fort William in Calcutta in 1696.
Calcutta slowly and steadily grew up till 1756 when Siraj-ud-daulah, the Nawab of Murshidabad, attacked and captured Fort William.
Most of the Britishers fled.
The unfortunate ones fell victim to what is known as the Black Hole of Calcutta.

The British retaliated and defeated Siraj-ud-daullah in the decisive Battle of Plassy in 1757 and recaptured Calcutta.

In 1772, Warren Hastings, the first Governor General, made Calcutta the capital of British India and moved government offices from Murshidabad to Calcutta.
From 1864, the capital moved to the picturesque hilly town of Shimla during the summer months.

During this period, the marshes surrounding Calcutta were drained and the government area laid out along the banks of the Hooghly River.
Richard Wellesley, the Governor General during 1797-1805, is largely responsible for the growth of the city and its style of architecture, which has earned Calcutta the reputation – The City of Palaces.

By early 19th century, Calcutta was divided into two distinct areas – the White Town where the British lived, and the Black Town where the Indians lived.
The poverty and the living conditions in the Black Town shanties were appalling.

From the 1850s, there was rapid industrial growth in the textile and jute sectors.
And Calcutta developed.

The intermixing of British and Indian cultures created a new class of educated, urbane Indians – Babus – the bureaucrats, professionals, etc.

Lord Curzon’s division of Bengal in 1905 created a lot of unrest due to which the British shifted the capital to Delhi in 1911.

Calcutta was British Empire’s second city, after London,

What to see

The Hooghly river separates Calcutta from Howrah (which is a part of Greater Calcutta).
The Howrah Bridge connects the two.
A modern, second Howrah bridge, also connects the two cities.
You can take a boat ride on the river and watch the sun set.
You can start your journey from the Maidan.
It is a huge expanse of lawns bordered by the Hooghly river at one end and the elegant Chowringhee area on the other.
The Maidan is also called Calcutta’s lungs.
This place is the venue of large political meetings.

On the north end of the Maidan is the Shahid Minar, a unique 48 metres column, built in a rare combination of Turkish, Egyptian and Syrian architectural styles.
The Shahid Minar was erected in 1828.

Around the Maidan are a few of Calcutta’s historical landmarks – the magnificent Fort William which is not open to the general public; St. John’s Church; the Royal Calcutta Turf Club and Eden Gardens, which has a cricket stadium with a sitting capacity of 100,000 persons; and the enormous Netaji Indoor Stadium.

At the southern end of the Maidan is the imposing white marble Victoria Memorial, built by the British in 1921.

Lord Curzon modelled Victoria Memorial on the Taj Mahal. Victoria Memorial contains a huge collection of relics of the Britishers – statues, paintings, manuscripts, firearms, lithographs and furniture.
The sprawling lawns around, lined with trees, offers splendid morning or evening walks.

To the east of the Memorial is St Paul’s Cathedral,
one of the most important churches of India, with impressive stained glass windows.

Close by is the National Library which has over a million books – the largest collection in India. The National Library building used to be residence of the Lieutanant Governor of Bengal.

Built in 1875, the Indian Museum building is a fine example of Italian architecture.
This is the largest museum in the country and has six sections – Art, Archaelogy, Anthropology, Geology, Zoology and Industry.
The museum even has an Egyptian Mummy and a large collection of fossils of prehistoric animals, a huge tortoise, a roomful of meteorites and art from temples.

The Calcutta Zoo has a huge collection of animals and plants.
Its full name is Calcutta Zoological Gardens.

Near the Race Course is the second, imposing and ultra-modern cabled bridge on the Hooghly called Vidya Sagar Setu,

Kali Temple at Kalighat is another famous temple.
It is almost next to Mother Teresa’s Home for the Destitute.

Hathibagan is a Sunday market where you can buy small animals, fishes and plants.
Earlier, you could even buy elephants and deer.

Howrah Bridge, which is actually a canti-lever bridge, is an engineering marvel of its day.
Around 2 million people cross it daily.

The Botanical Gardens, laid out in 1786, is actually in Howrah just across Hooghly river.
It has a fabulous collection of plants and trees.
It has a unique 200 year old Banyan tree with a circumference of over 400 metres.

Lying to the North in Howrah is Belur Math.
It is so built that it looks like a temple, a mosque and a church when viewed from different angles.
This is the head quarter of the world famous Ramakrishna Mission.
Swami Vivekananda started his religious journey from here.

Reaching there

By Air

Kolkata has an International Airport.
The Airport is 17 kms away from the city centre.

By Train

There are two stations.
The more important one is Howrah Station on the other side of Hooghly River.
The other one is Sealdah.

By Sea

Kolkata has a port with regular sailings to Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, Vishakhapatnam and Chennai.

My views

Calcutta is a different kind of city.

A strange mix of the old British Raj and modern India.
The local people are traditionally fond of dance, drama, music, arts, football and cricket.

They value life and enjoy every single moment.
In the 1970s, the leftist government was too much pro worker oriented leading to a lot of labour unrest.

Several industries closed down.

Many shifted to other states.
But things have since changed.

The present government is encouraging new entrepreneurship and is actively inviting investors.

All this is reflected in the developments clearly discernible throughout the city.

Calcutta is also the gateway to north east India.

You can also visit the enchanting Sunderbans.