A place that still turns into motion, where doors become gates of light, casting infinite timelines beings. it crashes through the way you believe. Varanasi, for me personally, was a place where destruction and creation come together, beyond imagination.
My partner and I arrived in Varanasi from South India during the daytime. We quickly jumped into an Uber at the airport, making our way through the almost impassable narrow alleys, and that’s where the journey began. Tiny, high-walled passageways spread like veins, leading us toward the holy river, the Ganga.
I can never forget how stunned and speechless we were when we entered those film-like alleyways of Varanasi, pedestrians, vendors, cows, colors, chai, monkeys, fire, people pissing by the side of the street, motorbike riders honking and speeding through, everything crammed into one narrow lane. Danger is at every corner, and there’s no space to even take a breath. Everything flows like an unstoppable river.
Our lodge nestled in a small alleyway beside the river. The entrance, half below ground, felt almost like a hidden cave. That rough lodge became our safe haven for the week. I remember sleeping in a windowless room where day and night didn’t seem to exist. A bright blue painting across the wall made it feel strange, yet somehow sacred.
We woke up at 5 a.m. every day, hearing pilgrims celebrating and singing as they queued to enter the Shiva temple, hoping for a glimpse of the Shiva linga. Sometimes even opening our front gate to the outside world was difficult because of the crowd, that’s how daily life begins in the midst of Varanasi.
Along the river, there are countless ghats, each representing different meanings and gods. So do the architectures, the colors, and the people. It is the river itself that reflects the society, ancient and uniquely individual, yet still whole.
The experience, of course, includes constantly rejecting the salesmen approaching you, each trying their best to get something out of you, even those dressed in monks’ robes with long beards. Here, spirituality can wear a disguise. It made me wonder whether the origin of religion is also tied to the origin of demons.
But the way Varanasi holds all these elements, light and shadow, does not feel like heaven or hell. Instead, it reveals how a human being reacts when exposed to the extreme reality of chaos. A force too intense to bear, you end up vomiting out everything that does not belong to you.
And that is probably what happened at the end of my journey in Varanasi. It pushed me through a narrow passage of illness, something that completely broke my body under stress, and in a strange way awakened it.
I remember when we cruised along the river at sunset, passing the many ghats. It was a sacred moment that carried me into a distant memory where my body did not exist, only my spirit flowing with the river. I watched beings come and go through the gate of life. Bodies burned in fire, and ashes drifted through the air. I began to wonder where I am going in this life.
At that moment, the scene felt like a kaleidoscope, as if a god were drawing lots from a pot, giving every soul its birthplace and purpose, and the reality each must pass through, from darkness to enlightenment.
Varanasi is just like the river itself, pushing you toward your destiny. It opens the gate of life and leads you into those messy, colorful, vein-like alleyways where life begins. It is a living painting of how life is imagined before it takes form, a world that sends your spirit on a journey back, returning you to what is true and most pure within you, if you do not drown in it.
19th March 2026 4:12pm – Memory Fragment 01 Varanasi, India
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