It's quarter past 6, there's an unusual excitement in the Ghats. People are whizzing by you in a hurry, it's like you are stuck in the middle of a children's park, there's excitement in all directions. Some of the Ghats started getting filled up with people, mostly foreigners and tourists. Everyone was there to watch the "Aarti" happen. It's a really old ritual which happens every day at 6:30 PM. The ritual per se is quite old, but the show which was put on for everyone in the ghats is a relatively newer function. We see a bunch of brightly coloured, well coordinated men on a platform "performing" the age old Aarti. It's quite a sight. The smoke from the lamps of each of these bright men twirl up to form a huge majestic cloud of smoke and the sizes and shapes of the lamps keep changing as we go further into the function. The audience love it, all the photographers (including myself) are having a semi-photographic-orgasm. I mean, who wouldn't come to Varanasi and not experience and boast about their thrilling Aarti experience, which I can honestly say lived up to its expectations.The only missing element being the locals of Varanasi, very few of the Banarasi population showed up for the Aarti. This got me thinking, and after this experience one of the topics of conversations I would strike up with the people there were about the Aartis. I found out that this present Aarti charade was only introduced 20 years back, before this all the ghats had was a small simple Aarti function. This sprouted a lot of questions and skepticism in my head. I know that I am not in a position to form a judgement about their daily rituals, but I am at liberty to dislike the whole setting for its lack of cultural and historical value, for it's tourism and advertising. Well, just one of those things that stuck with me during the trip, so there.
To consolidate my dislike towards this function, I will put up a picture I took of it, thereby portraying my hypocrisy - for which I unfairly blame the Aarti performance.
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