As a 27-year-old bachelor, I was yearning to visit Varanasi, a sacred place visited by Hindus, mostly in the twilight of their lives. One fine day, I put my box camera, clothes and bedsheets into a suitcase and I started for Varanasi from Kanpur, where I was working. I boarded a vacant second class compartment—in use during the sixties—and chose the upper berth of the Varanasi-bound train.
Tired of the day’s grind, I crashed out soon. I kipped unperturbed till a hard knock on the door woke me up. It was Varanasi. After spending the rest of the night in the waiting room, I stepped out of the station the next morning to proceed to the Kashi Vishwanath temple. I hired a cycle rickshaw to go to the temple.
I had to hire a guide to take me around. I handpicked a teenager out of the phalanx of guides volunteering to help me. He was wearing dhoti in the traditional Panchakacham style and sported a not-so-densely crowded tuft on his crown amidst a thick growth of stubble around. Sasthri led me first to the bathing ghat of the Ganges. I gave him my suitcase which had my money purse, watch, etc. Then, I changed to a dhoti, stood in chest deep water and began the customary five dips, ensuring that the guide was present beside me each time I raised my pate out of the water. After my bath, accompanied by Sasthri, I entered the temple with my suitcase in one hand.
There were men with thick matted hair and long-flowing beards. Their entire bodies were spotlessly smeared with vibhooti (sacred ash). They were squatting in the recesses on the walls of the temple. They blessed me as I bowed to them. I offered every one of them nothing less than four annas—as gestured by my guide.
After circumambulating the idol of Lord Vishwanath, the reigning deity of the shrine, I bade goodbye to Sasthri and returned to Kanpur. As I entered my room, my roommates asked whether I had left anything back in Varanasi. I looked inside my suitcase and realised that I had accidentally left behind my Ray-Ban cheaters at the waiting room in the Varanasi Railway station. And the belief that one’s visit to Varanasi is incomplete without leaving behind a cherished possession indeed came true.