India's Prime Constituency - Varanasi

He promised unabashedly more than what people of Varanasi got these five years. Prime projects are still to be completed, but Narendra Modi has set the narrative here for Mega Election 2019.

- Mathew T. George

Watching Prime Minister Narendra Modi at work in Varanasi is a bit like watching a tiger in Ranthambore. The master campaigner is in his element. He has his ear to the ground. He can pad softly when needed and crash through the dry leaves when the mood is on him. He can remain silent. He can call for love. For war. And, then there is the retinue. The watchers in the trees, calling out warnings. Then, those who rush in panic through the undergrowth. There are the porcupines, whom even the striped-one shuns. The scavengers giggle in the shadows. Too scared to look him in the eye, but too dependent on the pickings. It is a regular jungle out there. And with 2019 upon us, it will get wilder. And it all has begun in Varanasi, home of Mahadev, the God of Gods.

Kashi. Banaras. Varanasi. The City Eternal. Pracheen (ancient) is the prefix applied to it and to many things within. How old? The standard answer is a tired quote attributed to Mark Twain: “Banaras is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together.” Through the ages, seekers have been drawn to this wellspring of spirituality. You run into them in the slim and sinuous lanes. By the eternal funeral pyres at Manikarnika Ghat. In the Ganga, when the dawn is cold and grey. At dusk, when the blazing aarti salutes the sacred river at Dashashwamedh Ghat. In the beginning. At the end. And every time in between, the seekers are a constant.

Yet, one does not expect to meet truth in Varanasi. The city embodied post-truth before the thought was even born. One goes there by faith, not for facts. It is a city of greys, of contradictions. Many holy cities in north India frown upon non-vegetarian food. But Mahadev’s city takes it in its stride. Major hotel brands have properties here. As one drives in from the airport in Babatpur, one can see apartment stacks rising above a city that was once low-rise.