A World of Many Worlds

Kashi Banaras Varanasi

There are hundreds of names

Yet the question remains

Can any of them capture the essence of Kashi

Slow, steady like the dingy in its Ganges,

sways the waking city

its ghats and lanes still misty

resplendent with devotion of ages

Its magic is not only in the silk saree

woven on the hand-loom

It’s here that even

the lives of the dead bloom

Hindus, Muslims, theist and the atheist

all are mellowed and subdued

when they call the river not just Ganga but Gangaji

Such is Ganga-Jamni tehzeeb, every breath full of gratitude

Those ghats that were kissed by the lotus feet

of Buddha, Kabir, Tulsidas and Vivekananda

and many more lives coruscating

Isn’t such a place worth visiting?

Kashi meaning luminous

contains in its belly world of many worlds

So is it my fault if while describing

it I fall short of words