Some Interesting Conversations With People Of Varanasi

To satisfy my unending quest I never miss a chance to interact with the local people while travelling around. As I strongly believe one can know the place in the best possible manner only by interacting with the locals. And there are several other advantages of having conversation with locals like, you can hear some great stories, some interesting, some inspiring, some funny and at the end it makes you feel more confident and sometimes you can end up being good friends.

A conversation with baba Somnath.

A potrait of Baba Somnath.

It was little after dusk I was walking back towards Assi Ghat when I saw him sitting on the steps of the ghats busy crushing weed for his evening dose. Quite attracted by his appearance with his permission I clicked a few potraits of him and had a little conversation with him. Baba Somnath belongs to Bashirhat area of West bengal and choosed the ascetic way of living when he was 24.
I was quite surprised when he started revealing his past life which he left behind before becoming a sage. His real name was Soumendra Nandan Bhattacharya and he came from a top class family from West Bengal with relatives like B.C.Roy. He has completed his Masters in hindi sahitya and was very much capable to speak on every possible topic like politics and current affairs.

When I asked "Baba why did you choose to live like this"?
His answer was "I don't understand the concept of being selfish, and I seriously did not liked the selfish world and if I had lived for sometime more in your world I would have also become selfish. And why should I cry for a handful of rice."
An Inspiring conversation...

Somnath Baba crushing his evening weed.

Vishal Posing for a Potrait.

Vishal, who comes from Chandigarh is a Sanskrit student and has just passed his ISC examinations.
When asked about his subject, he said "while the whole world is busy and running towards modernisation I want to turn back the pages of our culture and study about the root of all languages Sanskrit". The ganga Arti was about to start and I had a small conversation with Vishal while enjoying the serenity of the Ganga arti on the ghats.

Baba ram posing for a potrait.

Baba Ram was the most jovial baba I ever met. Baba has recently been part of  some bollywood movies which have been filmed on the ghats of Varanasi. Baba has also covered the holy Amarnath yatra twice but this year he could not go for it because of some paper work issues. I met him twice and he always had some very interesting and funny stories to share, he was always ready to pose for a photograph. After a refreshing conversation we had our evening tea together.

Showcasing some actng skills

Potrait of a sadhu