Wall painters arrive in Varanasi

We have successfully made it to Varanasi with the help of Qatar Airways and IMS-service. We are really grateful for them that they have made the trip doable!

3D view of our flight

Delicious!

Flying high on Qatar Airways

We will publish a more detailed report later on, because the Internet connection in Varanasi is rather slow, and downloading pictures take a lot of time.

The city of Varanasi welcomed our arrival with smooth weather, even a little chilly in the mornings and evenings. What can I say about the changes in city from the first glance, well, now Varanasi has more quality big format outdoor advertising, both in terms of constructions and printing. The ghats have more lightning during the evenings, so they are easy to navigate, I barely used my flashlight going from Dasashwameth to Assi ghat. To my surprise I saw children playing not only cricket, but also badminton! Totally amazing.

A night view from Assi ghat

The traffic stays the same, the streets are crowded with riksha-wallas and chai is still a major treat here.

The central ghat and other ghats around 500 meters from it were cleared of all advertising paintings in November for the Dep Devali celebration. Our announcement was also removed, but we are not discouraged, we will do a real wall painting, not just an announcement )

As for the graffiti, we have met everyone we needed on the second day of our arrival, including the owner of the ghat Mr. Mishtra, so today at 11-00 we started our long awaited and long air-flighted wall painting.

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Potters enjoying sun in Varanasi

Varanasi potters were finally out in full strength to take advantage of the warm and shining Sun and lend their vigour to giving shape to various-sized earthen cups.

"We could not have asked for a more opportune time for weather to improve than the holy Magh month," said Sunil Vishwakarma, a senior potter. "It not only marks the start of the wedding season but other sacred rituals and festivities also create a demand for out earthen cups. Then, there is always the high demand of tea to be served in these cups in this season," he elaborated.

The recent cold weather, which lasted for 10 days, had caused nearly 50% slump in their business as most of the tea stalls and kiosks across the city had opted for plastic cups. Even more so, the faint sunlight could not provide sufficient warmth for drying the pots, causing delay in their preparation.

"The extended sunlight with increasing intensity is a blessing for clay materials that get harder and bind easily under these conditions," said another potter Ashok Karmakar.

Over 10,000 potter families reside in Varanasi depending on the clay crockery business. The demand for earthen cups reaches its peak in the winter season due to increasing consumption of hot beverages, especially local tea with milk that is preferred in earthen cups. 5 rupees a cup.
The cups then get smashed against the pavement.

based on The Times of India story