In Search Of Shiva: Kashi

Part 1 of 5

image courtesy: https://www.pexels.com/@nitish-kumar/

I
Mornings in Kashi were hazy and dewy in winters. The spirits had finally left the burning pyres, and many had transmigrated back to mortal coils. Flesh to Ash to Flesh. The road to salvation is not easy as virtuosity becomes rare- in fact, even rarer in this city. The mynas would chirp ever so gently to ferry you across to consciousness. And the Sun, did not seem to be in a rush to light up the world. He almost always tiptoed into my room, like a lover looking to kiss my eyes open. Everything took its time to unfold, everything felt like it has always been here forever– holding onto stories– to be told, if you asked or to be deciphered from the silences that wearily wove themselves around everything at this time.

At my bed’s footboard was a beautifully carved wooden four petaled lotus, and if it were not for my mother’s Neraval floating through the terrace into my room that fused with the heady jasmine incense, I could have stayed in bed all day just marvelling the intricacy of that design. But I had to wake up and tip-toe as fast as I could, up the stairway that led to our terrace balcony, to watch her- all draped and adorned in one of her pastel Benarsi Jamdani, seated cross legged on a straw mat, laid on the floor and meditatively plucking away at the ektara. She faced the rising Sun and was such a beauty to watch in those few…