..also known as Benaras, Banaras and Varanasi. The city looks welcoming though it has a capillary capacity to do so. The roads are narrower than they look and the transportation is haphazard – not to mention the jumbled up nature of the modes available. May be it is more of a trend of getting used to the setup that sets in once you are here.

Going to the ghats was a surprising event since all I could see was a train of rickshaws (leg-pulled) carrying a lot of foreigners on them. I looked at the people around in amazement who were unaffected by foreign presence, while I was more than pleasantly surprised. The experiences in other Indian cities (Delhi, Lucknow and Bangalore)  have been very bad – people harass, bother and bug any foreign looking person unnecessarily, but Banaras is a class apart. You may belong to any creed and no one bothers you. In fact, foreigners are treated at par with the locals and given the same rates and bargain offers. So all you visitors to the Taj Mahal, do come to Benaras! :)

The DasAshwamedh ghat is a fabulous site at night. Especially the Aarti there is a treat for both tourists and pilgrims alike. Though it was my first time witnessing an Aarti on a Ganga (Ganges) ghat, I did not feel the novelty – possibly because of my familiarity with the steps performed. The procession following it was quite a sight and a must watch for folks coming here.

Even though my left molar is breaking up due to an irresponsible scaling done by a dentist (do not visit Dr. Sathya’s clinic in Kormangala, Bangalore), I did not stay back from relishing what this city has on offer. Samosas, kachodis, gol-guppe, aloo chat and much more – I tried out everything so far I have come across. All I’ve to do is making sure that my Diclofenac dosage is alive, thanks to my father’s prescription.

The best part about Varanasi are the distances. Any office, bank, institution, apartment – any thing at all, you just spend a ten rupee note and get there. From the farthest corner to the other end, the city is really a sub-urban center with everything close by. Some common-sense for other cities: please keep all your financial institutions in one place, and that’s what Benaras has done. Come to Sigra (a place in Varanasi), and find everything nearby.

I did not arrive into Varanasi for tourism, the purpose could not be any more distant, but as co-incidence would have it, all I have been doing this year around is going to pilgrimage points (earlier in the year to Rameshwaram, though for a solar eclipse viewing). I feel relaxed now for my original goal of coming to Varanasi is nearing fulfillment.

Buying property/house in Varanasi? A word of caution. Please do not engage in any dealing with local brokers. There is a famous broker on the internet: Lalwani properties. These guys are extremely unprofessional, waste a lot of your time and will finally get you to a property that is undervalued and you will have to give out black cash to fill up the gaps. All that money goes black. Do not use Lalwani properties. Also, there’s another dealer: Varanasi propzone – please do not use them either. They are again unprofessional and will take all your time. Do not use Varanasi Propzone either if you want to save time. I don’t know about their service, but can assure you of their unprofessionalism about starting up on the wrong note. The best way is to find out reputed builders and then buy houses and properties directly from them.

Was at the Warner Bros. studios the other day and this is what I saw there. The famous spidey scene where five guys get beaten up, MJ gets saved and spidey comes upside down to hand over a kiss was shot here (image on the right). Most of the scenes were shot around the same alley (I guess a norm in the film industry). My wife’s excitement levels were quite low as compared to mine – she has been there done that and shrugged away the studio as “not comparable” to the ones in Mumbai. Quite an experience for me.

The famous helicopter scene (Oceans 12)  and the casino scenes were shot in this place on the left. The helicopter scene  is supposed to be on a roof top, and can you believe it that the roof top is actually the alley we see on the left? They hid the buildings with large green screens.

Talking of the buildings, these are real buildings there. They are painted and furnished appropriately every time to match the period and flavor of the movie. Well, not just movies – but even TV serials are shot in the same sets.

Then, the place on the right is where the famous Friends’ episode (guys are in college, chubby and look weird and go out and ask the girls for the prom night) was shot. The entire shoot (of Ross’ house) was inside this little house – and outside of it.

Once again, somebody sucked at the Bangalore Int’l Airport and made yet another foolish mistake. As if the single terminal at an International airport did not let us have enough of their stupidity, here’s another one. Click the photo on right to see how they have wrongly used far-sightedness (see definition) when they actually meant to say that he was farsighted (see definition). I am never shy to check the dictionary, even for the word shy.

• Here’s my tip to the BIAL media fo(o)lks: “Do not waste your insufficient brain strength on trying to promote the city. Bangalore already has a lot of credibility and recognition.”

• Another one: What is the point of keeping Bangalore maps at the departure points and “NOT” at the arrival gates or baggage claims or the exit gates?
• Why are the customs personnel there always looking to make a quick buck out of any one and are rude to the tip of their hair? You want money in those white dresses, that is fine with me – but why the hell do you want to poke me to the verge of lunacy?  I am so annoyed with this whole ruckus.

• Yet another one: Why the hell are you charging a user development fee at the gate of the airport? Why can’t you let the airline counters do it? Why can’t the airline tickets include it? They don’t care about how inconvenient it gets for the passangers. I am not against the fee – BUT TAKE IT IN A DECENT ENOUGH WAY!

This toothed tower is in remembrance of an elephant-judge.

Story is that the Mughals used to let “the accused” into a field with an elephant. It is for the elephant to decide whether the accused is innocent or guilty. Stomping would mean guilty-of-charge and on some days it would let off. That tower with protruding teeth you see marks the grave of that elephant.

Glad to not be ruled by such idiots any more.

There was dust and noise all around as she hoped that this would die down soon. No matter how close she got to the chief destination, the ache at the back of her head never did plummet. Then there was a white majestic structure in sight which put fresh hopes of surprise.

With washed feet and a covered head, she ventured into the world of “Ek Onkar” behind the white gates. The golden domes in sight, the water around them and a safe feeling of being in one of the world’s best managed temples had already killed the dusty images of Amritsar left behind.

Going around the beautiful real-gold-domes on the cool white marble she saw a kid seated on the ground with folded hands towards the temple. Devotion could lead the kid to deliver a cheque of £100,000 from his London residence, when he grows up to realize these prayers, to the temple – as many others have done (evident from the tiles engraved with such generous donations at the Prasad area).

The langar was a simple black dal, roti and rice with a kesari halwa at the end. That wasn’t a deterring factor to have it as there can be no better way to experience community power. A few servants at the langar drove into the temple in a Mercedez as the community would give back what it got – supposedly from God.

The only white Taj Mahal I have ever seen was a sketch in a 3rd Standard (Class 3) history book. I envy the author who saw “..the most beautiful building in the world set in pure white marble”.

Apart from the verses written all over the Taj, you could find news about Rajesh loving Zubina, Suresh’s love for Puja and that Zakir would be dead without Karishma. Witness an educated NRI howling at the top of his voice “Hello.. My name is Arvind…” inside the Mahal. Bet that his excellency would have been delighted to hear those echoes inside his grave.

The picnic would have been incomplete without a Lay’s packet being smuggled into the building and being spread open – accidentally – on the ground. The chips were further battered into pieces by people walking on them and some even taking pleasure to play a game of “Hah, I footballed those pieces at your legs”.

Why should you, then, go there? Imagine this – there’s a 400+ year old structure, costing more than $100 billion in asset value and it would go down in the very near future. Would you miss a chance to rub your hands all over the inside of it and have a royal picnic hangout with your buddies who would help you in eve-teasing foreigners? Come on, you would surely not miss trying to scratch some marble out of it as a souvenier – or just to prove to your family that it really is Iranian marble (after all, you have a doctorate in geology and Taj Mahal is an excellent experimentation device).