Bandipur and Banaras: The lived life

Living forty nine years in Banaras Hindu University and leaving Banaras at the age of seventy, I have shadowed reflections of a wanderer. My friend says it to me that I have not changed much, except turning grey. What is there to change if self is dissolved, contentedly. This is the strength of places we live in and the people we interact. The spaces and its inhabitants, including flora and fauna have continuous roles in our making and shaping. My first twenty years in Kashmir, studying at different places were groomed around the social kernel of our home and its laboratory was Bandipur. Our homes were linked with institutions, organically. Bandipur was a microcosm of a university. N.M. Higher secondary School its grooming ground.

In school, I was one of the most sought after students, among toppers in my class until board examinations came. My mind was not in sciences, I performed below average to the agony of my parents and joy of my critics. It was fall from sky. In Kashmir, academic brilliance is measured by medical and engineering ideal types. I missed that accomplishment. In the college, my friend Ghulam Nabi Mir, a year senior to me persuaded me to change my subjects. I listened to him. It was a huge relief. Professor Bacha and Professor Zargar gave me perspectives in literature and philosophy. I played games, cultivated friends and visited around every inch of Kashmir. I was librated. The shift from biological sciences to Humanities gave me wings to think of moving out from the routine. My brothers helped me in that line. It is how I came to Varanasi after graduation in 1974.

My transient meet with the place, Banaras long ago in October 1974 was an encounter with unmanageable mechanical and organic disorder, a city with no momentum trampling sparingly further than stagnation. But apparent was not real. It was behind the cursory meet. It was no different place in essence than Bandipur, once I cultivated it. I found it a germination of microcosm of Bandipur. The weary streets and curvature of the Ghats tell the story, perceive history with a sense of continuum. Time stops as birth and death exist together. Life is alive and death is dancing twenty four hours joining dawn with dusk. The never dying flames at burning Ghats, soft gossips at tea stalls, changing throng at pan shops, traditional looms, market fragrance and intellectual aura of campuses make it a monolithic city, dissolved in social constructions. It is a live stage of mythical past. The Ganges, here is like a crescent moon sealing grace at its borders, for a while and then making reverse flow from South to north as if a search for its origins. It defuses fear of death, rejects the notion of time stratified. It is holy to Hindus, dear to Muslims, who live on looms and provide its best fabric bonding centre with peripheries. It is sacred to Buddhists and Jains, while nurturing greater traditions as well. It gives anchorage in a sense, that there are classes without class consciousness. It values faith and devotion while cutting across the formalism of religion and its rigidity of traditions. Buddha, Raidas, Kabir, Tulsi, Ghalib, Gandhi and Mahamana, along with a long list of musicians, artists, scholars and sages have captured that thread of continuum of ages to make time, unbroken and Banaras as a place of self-reflective commitment. It has many names, three in vogue: Varanasi, kashi and Banaras. The names reveal stories, an anterior to its social cultural and historical landscape depicting social formations in the historical shifts power and domination realm.

It was a time period, when Banaras Hindu University had become grooming ground for Jaiprakash Narayan’s call for ‘Total Revolution’. The university found emergency period an opportunity to regularize session. Our two years course got condensed so that in M.A. previous full year was reduced to a session from December to April. My worry was my performance, so that I could restore my esteem in the eyes of my home people and friends. Those days to send two hundred rupees per month was a huge sum. It is a gratitude that makes me overwhelmed with unconditional obedience towards my brothers, until my last breath. I would generally be a lonely person in the hostel when others would avail colorful cultural evenings in the campus life. One evening our cook Sidhu Maharaj, (as cooks in the hostels were titled as Maharaj) asked me why despite my open disposition, I would remain lonesome. I straightway told him that I wanted to do well in my examinations, but I would see no chance of it with my new subject of Sociology that I had taken first time in my masters. It would further sadden my father, if I fail here. The Mess Maharaj was prompt and instant to tell me” Babu you go to Sankat Mochan every evening, I shall keep your dinner secured. You will have good results”. I did it, until my results were announced. I got first class first. My father received my telegram, ‘Papa, First class first”. His letter to me after this news was a piece of literature. I was back in my family traditions. Mess Maharaj ‘Sidhu ji’ showed me the way that changed my life world and career trajectory. I knew in Bandipur also,we would go to Sharda Mandir for seeking blessings and Muslims would go to Syeid Saheb or Kahnov sahib. May be we do not understand it in immediate time interval, but it is primarily your home, institution and communications with your people and surroundings that shape and make your story a success story. No matter what ever decisions you take in life, giving love and gaining trust make the difference.

‘Yeh sari meharbaniya ik tare nazar ki hai

Sozan sey kabhi mera kiya chaak jigar silta’

Until 1974, I remained in Bandipur, it was a different place. A traditional society, in Bandipur we lived on symbolic system which, was the core of social interactions. It was shared life, common sharing of social heritage and continuity of social structure. Despite massacre at Ajar by raiders in October 1947, minority majority trust did not cave in. It was based on common concrete normative orientation of group action, rather than had voluntaristic individual action. Its power of resistance and absorption was in the line of primordial unity of thought. In homes, in schools and in neighborhood this blending tradition of Lald Ded Nund Reshi would flow, unmindful what was happening at super structure level in power realm that had shown the seeds of distrust? The institutions, formal and informal would control individuals rather than their dispositions. The transcendental absolute was accepted in human universe through collective consciousness. This was the blending tradition, where our childhood groomed as a macrocosmic entity. The lived religion worked through the basic value premises of our identified traditions over the ages had endured the implications of the power realm of formal religions, through mimicry and silence. Kashmiri Pandits were monolithic one community having a guru ji, a family or two in the whole towns. Muslims too were monolithic, but had deeper divisions in terms of class and sort of castes since 16^th century for perpetuation of power and domination to render the majority into inferior realm of society. The implicit rhythm of the society was on established shared traditions, rather than big push for divisions and development. The formalism of religion akin with power structure remained veneer to the society in general. Thus the lived religion had inherited submission to destiny and trust based on the principles of Lalded Nund Reshi cultural repertoire. This inherent tradition underwent qualitative structural change in 1990, when that social core got fractured into pieces spread all over the globe. Despite social optics for denotative formations, substance lacks its inherent vitality, both at native place, as well as, in displaced sites. I left Bandipur with invisible foundations of that social cultural capital that ensured my accommodation in the huge academic circumference of Banaras Hindu University, full with potential and possibilities. However, its kernel was our home, school, Madhumati rivulet and its close deities in Bandipur.

Since, our native knowledge of Kashmir starts with the tradition of knowledge of the entire cosmos, its technique a realization of primordial unity; Varanasi perceives that intellectual powers that are potentially unbounded. The cradle of Bandipur moved well with the strings of Varanasi, without causing any break in my existential continuum. I am where I was fifty years ago. The only point of reference is then I came here for seeking life. I leave this place, a fully lived life in gratitude and submission to bring end to my wandering circles. Bandipur provided that kernel with acumen and Banaras traced the path. I am overwhelmed with the heartfelt gratitude to the both the sites that gave me compassion and gratification.

Ashok Kaul, Retired Emeritus Professor at Banaras Hindu University