Each time I visit Varanasi two things strike me: And I believe these two facets of the city encapsulate the essence of Indian civilisation. First is the quiet intensity of people's faith. The Ganga may have become a pathetic shadow of her former majestic form -- it's now a shallow stream, slate-grey in colour, choking with debris and sandbanks -- but people devoutly pay obeisance, hoping to wash off their sins with a few ritual dips. Thousands throng Dashashwamedh Ghat every day, riverside pundits do brisk business and the tradition of several millennia continues uninterrupted. The second thing about Varanasi is the reiteration of Jawaharlal Nehru's perceptive assessment of the "silken bond" that ties India together. Every day an estimated 10 busloads and three trains full of pilgrims from the South, especially Tamil Nadu, arrive here to offer prayers to the Ganga and proceed to pray at the Vishwanath Temple. It was in this context that Nehru wrote about the undefined cultural bonding of people across the sub-continent, a timeless link that ensures continuity of India's nationhood -- a nationhood not constricted by language or territoriality, but defined by faith.

After many decades I took a morning off to take a dip in the Ganga and thereafter offered prayers at Baba Vishwanath's abode. It is always an ethereal experience, taking a ritual bath in the holiest of holy rivers, whether at Haridwar, Varanasi or just outside our ancestral home in Hooghly, 40 km upstream from Kolkata. The last time I came here was at the invitation of Pandit Virbhadra Mishra, hereditary head priest of the Sankat Mochan Temple (where the infamous blasts took place in 2006). An engineer by profession Panditji has made it his life's mission to preserve whatever is left of Ganga's pristine purity. Admittedly though, this progressively appears to be a losing battle. Despite spending over Rs 7,200 crore since Rajiv Gandhi initiated the Ganga Action Plan in 1986, the condition of the river has deteriorated steadily. Reports affirm that it is, for all practical purposes, dead. The pollution level of the water is so high that fish cannot survive, the water so impure that leave alone drink it, even bathing is considered a dermatological health hazard. Untreated sewage continues to be regularly discharged into the river, particularly at Kanpur.

In Varanasi itself, a tributary, Varuna (which, along with the other tributary, Assi, define the geographical limits of the city that derives its name from these two rivers) has become a synonym for an open drain. Varuna's water is brackish in colour, polluted by the city's waste, and yet it disgorges itself into the Ganga without any check. Varanasi's residents continue to be agitated over the shabby treatment their lifeline gets at the hands of the authorities. Prof Om Prakash Singh of BHU told me that the Ganga itself had been reduced to a series of jheels (lakes), since its flow is blocked by dams and barrages right from Tehri. Quoting from the Puranas, he said any water body not exceeding 80 dhanus (approximately 40 km) is fit to be described as a lake, not river. It is astonishing that politicians and industrialists, the main culprits for the Ganga's degeneration, routinely seek the river's blessings, carry home its water in containers, but remain supremely indifferent when it comes to restoring its purity.

It was a somewhat unusual event that took me to Varanasi. When the Vishwa Samvad Kendra (VSK) contacted me to be Chief Guest for a Journalists' Convention on the occasion of Narad Jayanti, I was rather surprised by the linkage. Narad, although an endearing figure in Hindu mythology, is not regarded as the first journalist in the universe. In fact, as several speakers at the Varanasi conclave on Thursday pointed out, mythology-based teleserials have portrayed Narad as a jovial, somewhat mischievous personality, delighting in carrying information from person to person, family to family, camp to camp, sometimes even causing misunderstandings between them. But then I wondered, maybe the VSK had got it right. Narad was, after all, a highly respected rishi, revered for his erudition, always at hand to give sage advice and, indeed, acted as a medium of communication in that age. Son of a lowly maid, he is the Maharshi who advised Valmiki to write the story of Lord Ram when the dacoit-turned-scholar was groping for a subject to express his newly acquired knowledge and linguistic skills. So, the depiction of Narad as part-sage, part-clown does serious injustice to his personality, mythical or otherwise.

To my surprise, Varanasi journalists thronged the VSK headquarters and a lively discussion followed. It was forcefully suggested by the speakers that Narad Jayanti should be observed as Media Day every year, so that at least in one matter we do not tamely imitate days and benchmarks set by the victors of World War II. Since I have always known journalists to be sceptical about everything -- which is a good professional attribute unless carried to extremes -- I was happy to find significant departures in attitude in Varanasi. Particularly interesting was the informal discussions that followed the 150-minute-long, marathon Convention. Journalists of Eastern UP's biggest city are genuinely agitated over the condition of the Ganga and knowledgeable as well as concerned about the state of the environment. No, they are not NGO types, nor their environmentalism an empty fad as in the metros. I felt invigorated by their agitation. I wish this energy could be channelised into something productive and creative for the rejuvenation of the Ganga. Having raised questions about it in Parliament and participated in a Rajya Sabha discussion on the failure of the Action Plan, I have concluded that neither the political nor administrative authorities have any concern for the dying river. People's action alone can produce results and it is the media's role to connect people to one another on such issues of public interest, besides generating awareness and pushing these concerns onto the national agenda. This is what I told the Varanasi Conclave and I believe we can indeed play a much bigger role than hitherto only if we focus on a few things other than Bollywood romances or cricket auctions.

They say you don't visit a place of pilgrimage unless called there by the Supreme Being. That must be why I spent over two hours in and around the shrine of Lord Shiva, absorbing the aura of spirituality that envelops the precincts. It is truly humbling to see people in their thousands -- young, old, infirm -- waiting patiently for hours, negotiating their way through the temple for a few seconds of darshan and a chance to touch the lingam so brutally chopped off by Aurangzeb's marauding hordes in the 17th Century. But that could not kill people's faith, nor was the partial destruction of the Shiva Temple next door and its conversion into the Gyanvapi Mosque impact the holiness of Varanasi. With every visit, the city enchants me despite its chaotic character, unruly traffic and unregulated expansion. Varanasi defines Indian civilisation and the day it collapses, so will the Indian ethos.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, May 25, 2008