The Saga of Varanasi 1993–2000, Spiritual Journey and Celebration of Life
Varanasi: 1993–2000
I entered Varanasi on 11 December 1993. I left in August 2000 for Delhi to practice law. What remained behind was not a city I had inhabited, but a city that had inhabited me. Those seven years were not years of residence; they were years of formation.
I arrived as a brahmachari. In time, I became many things—yogi, tantric, vedic student, teacher, political actor, litigating lawyer, ascetic, and insurgent. I studied at Sangaveda Vidyalaya, Ramghat and at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), learning early that Kashi does not permit intellectual innocence. It compels participation. One either enters its contradictions or is expelled by them.
I moved without hesitation from the Vishwanath Temple to the Marua-D prostitution quarter, because Varanasi itself makes no distinction between purity and exposure. I bathed in the Ganga in December, when the water cuts into the body like a blade and leaves the will sharpened. I slept at Manikarnika Ghat under the open sky, on a stone chabutara, surrounded by pyres that reduced all philosophy to ash.
I ate at Satua Baba Ashram with Hamsharaj Shastri, where sustenance was minimal and discourse severe. I debated Vasudev Shastri of Sarvabhauma Sanskrit Sansthan, engaging not personalities but entire lineages of learning. At BHU, I practised politics apart from academics in its raw form—alliances, betrayals, ambition—until ideology gave way to experience. I fought the police at Assi Ghat and learned how easily authority panics when confronted by faith.
I managed Ramtarak Math near Brahmacharini Temple, and ran my own Gurukul. Then I gave tuition to students from Sunbeam, Atulananda, and several other schools for my survival. I practised law in the Benaras District Court, where justice functioned less as principle and more as endurance. I met Maharaja Vibhuti Narayan Singh Ji several times, encounters that revealed royalty in Kashi as a symbolic residue rather than a governing force.
I chanted the Ashtadhyayi under Surya Ji at Panini Kanya Mahavidyalaya, submitting myself to Panini’s merciless logic. I spent entire nights at the Galigaloj Sammelana, absorbing satire, disorder, and cultural defiance. I purchased books compulsively from Chowkhamba, knowing that in Kashi, texts are not objects but weapons.
I formed friendships in Dalmandi and Thatheri Bazaar, among Muslims and Agarwals who taught me co-existence without negotiation. I campaigned with Shyamdev Dada in Bangalitola, discovering how democracy operates at ground level. I quarrelled dilligently with Tatatmananda (Tambe Swami of Ramghat, disciple of Karpatri Maharaj and Ex-engineering Student from BHU) — because his Vedanta was conjecture and surmise, which is often a mask for cowardice. I exposed and beat a fraudulent Shankaracharya at Dashashwamedh Ghat, refusing to tolerate sanctity forged from deceit.
I stole naramundis from the Aghoris and burned them. I wore the kaupin and dhoti, then jeans, then a suit—each garment a provisional identity. During the month of Magha, I meditated at Maghar Sand Valley for ten days and nights without food or water, confronting the body until it surrendered its illusions. Then I was bitten by a snake and recovered at Kopil Chauraha Hospital, where I learned how casually death circulates in Varanasi. I understood raga Hamsadhwani under Pashupati Nath Mishra and learned that sound, when disciplined, becomes metaphysics.
Nilachal showed me how to boot a Windows-95–driven computer. Ajit Verma (his mother died on 16th January 2026…I shall tell later why she was so important in my life) escorted me to Sarnath on several occasions. Advocate Ajay Mukherjee introduced me to the workings of the Labour Court, while Advocate Sagar Babu led me to the Kenaram Baba Ashram. At the Manikarnika Ghat, in Jamuna Das Satuababa’s chamber within his half-broken ashram, Mahanta Nrityagopal Das spoke to me about the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement as I sat beside Mahanta Avaidyanath.
That prolonged encounter with Varanasi made me a man—not through refinement, but through abrasion. Saints and criminals, scholars and politicians, kings and beggars passed through my life. Each encounter stripped something away; each left something indelible.
There is no possibility of forgetting Bati Baba. He wore a deshi lengot and nothing more. He spoke almost every Indian state language with disarming fluency. He lived near Sonbhadra station and drifted frequently into Varanasi, unnoticed and unclaimed. He never asked for food. He ate from dustbins, not as an act of desperation, but of indifference. Hunger did not command him; neither did dignity, as the world defines it.
He was my secret friend—my companion in meditation, my teacher of calculus and matrices, and the one who introduced me to Anandakirtan. In his presence, I learned the art of nothingness—seeing nothing, hearing nothing, believing nothing, nothing to explain nothing.
These experiences—this saga of Varanasi—must be recorded. In Kashi, memory evaporates quickly into smoke, water, and chant. If it is not written, it will be lost.
This is an introduction—my story in glimpses rather than in full.
The Saga of Varanasi. I shall write one story after another to preserve the true cadence of life in Varanasi—its original scent, taste, and temperament.
Tanmoy Bhattacharyya
22nd January 2026