By Ashish Arora on July 16, 2011
Boat trip in Ganga Varanasi
The definition of one of the ancient cities, Varanasi, is incomplete if we don’t talk about the ghats here. Varanasi is the city with eighty-four ghats surrounding River Ganga. Every ghat contains a distinctive feature and history within itself.
We took a glance of the beauty of river Ganga, and many of its ghats, when we had chance for a boat trip in the river. We started our boat trip from Assi Ghat and ended it with Raj Ghat as our final destinations before returning.
On a boat trip in River Ganga, Varanasi
The holy river Ganga is the pilgrimage for a number of people in the country. Ganga flows from south to north. We were sailing though in that direction only. Meanwhile, we noticed how the garbage of whole city goes in the holy river. Ganga’s water is not as safe and clean as it was centuries back.
Further, we also learned about the specialties of some of the ghats, during our trips. Mata Anandmai Ashram is situated at Mata Anandmai Ghat. Hanuman Ghat is the place where Tamil, Telugu, Kannad and Malyalam languages speaking people reside together. A huge Shiv Temple is situated at Kedar Ghat.
Eighty four ghats of Banaras
Satyajit Ray, the noted film maker of Indian cinema, shot for his films several times, during 1955 to 1975, at the Ganga ghats. Furthermore, Ranamehal Ghat and Ahilyabai Ghat had been the venue for many of his films.
The Manmandir Ghat became a spot for us when we stopped and made a visit to Manmandir Observatory. Our last destination Raj Ghat is a live instance of ancient Kashi. The Raj Ghat houses famous Krishnamurty Foundation and Vasant Mahila Mahavidyalaya.
Finally, having visited all these spots, we moved back towards Assi Ghat. We returned seeing again all the ghats and recalling the facts and figures we had learned or understood that day.
