all you needed to know about selling your cow

sailing down the river

The Gandak is a majestic river, draining in its wake more than seven thousand square kilometres of land as it flows down to meet the Ganga. The meeting is of course, legendary. Not just because it is an extremely beautiful confluence of rivers but also because it is the site of Asia’s biggest congregation for trade in livestock. Since two smaller tributaries also join the Ganga at this point in its course, the Sonepur fair is quite strategic in its location vis-a-vis trade, both on land routes as well as waterways.

The fair sees much more than the regular rural livestock trade in cattle, horses, camels and sheep. The range of animals includes rare bred dogs, elephants, cats, monkeys and rabbits. And if Alsatians and Terriers weren’t enough for those fond of domestic animals, then there is a large variety of birds, some even as rare as the Snow Partridge that is usually found in much colder climate and the Grey-headed Parrot from the hills near Darjeeling, which are lined up for sale. The ways in which this annual fair links itself to a number of interconnected networks of trade in the local region as well as the other parts of the world is hard to imagine. A simple tabulation of different kinds of animals and goods that are bought and sold at Sonepur, both legally and illegally is a massive and daunting task. In terms of illegal trade, snakes, bears and intoxicants of a large variety are easy answers but on digging deeper, there are a lot of stories left to tell about Sonepur’s thriving trade environment.

 Sonepur, by itself, is a largely unassuming city. One could get by without much effort while being quite taken by some of its singularities. The old Gandak Railway Bridge is one such example – more than two thousand feet long and completed in 1887 during some of the river’s furious years. With the regular floods in Bihar during the last years of the nineteenth century and the successive floods in the last few decades, Sonepur’s culture and social life has survived just like its famous landmark. The first railway platform at the Sonepur railway station is another such marker to anyone stepping foot in the city. Far longer than the more famous bridge, this platform is one of the longest in the world, stretching to more than two thousand four hundred feet. But these dimensions slowly seem to cease as the fair makes claim to the pulse of Sonepur’s life.

Celebrations during Kartik Purnima

The Kartik Purnima is an auspicious day for Hindus and Sonepur’s charm is the throbbing life on this full moon night, filled with devotees lining up to take a dip at the confluence of two mighty rivers. Many stay on for the entire fortnight of the festival while others leave within the next few days although trade goes on well into a month from the date of the Kartik Purnima. The story goes that the Mauryan Empire bought its warhorses and elephants from Sonepur after breeders had travelled for miles to arrive at the banks of this confluence. Most local tales around the fair’s origins describe the confluence as one of five rivers, as famous as the kind of animals that frequented the annual fair – Persian horses, Burmese elephants and rare birds and animals along with elaborate displays of pottery and textiles from the span between Central Asia and the Gangetic belt.

The first day also marks the worship at the Harihar Nath temple, which is the epicentre of activity on that day. Offerings and ablutions are part of the rituals and needless to say, there is a fair bit of waste that accumulates around the fair. While public toilets are scant, relief mostly presents itself in the proximity between the mango groves where the fair is held and the tourist accommodation. The routes are lined with regular forms of entertainment – fortune tellers, soothsayers and those trained in various human feats like trapeze art or the more spectacular acts like walking on burning coal.

An all-male crowd watches a dance show in progress

In many senses, the fair is also a reality check. One would be quite taken aback by the vigour that nightly dance shows are treated with. It has been regular practice, for the last few years, to hold nightly dance shows where women take the stage to dance to the most popular dance tracks of the year as well as the older well-known songs. It should suffice to say that this is a comment on one facet of the gendered economy in this part of the world. While many commentators have called these shows ‘vulgar’, leading to the State Government’s ban on these shows in 2011, it was an open secret that these shows continued in local venues. That there is marketability to such practices gives a foreign visitor, even from a city a hundred miles away, that there is a strong clash between the national discourse on women’s empowerment and the prevailing economic and social constraints for women in most parts of India.

Additionally, while trade in endangered birds and animals is otherwise illegal, it is a flourishing activity in the backdrop of this popular fair. The district administration takes many measures to clean up the negative publicity that the Sonepur fair gets every year but little in terms of results is discernible. Sonepur, by and large is distracting because there is so much to take in at any point of time. While there are so many concerns with how the fair progresses, there is also the visibility of different forms of livelihood on such a massive scale. From potters to the makers of different weapons and artefacts, one can easily find some interesting story to hear – of some new kind of trade or craft which puts into perspective many other things that one sees in life outside Sonepur in Bihar.

Birds of a feather...

Bihar is a state in India that is hardly well-known for things considered great by the national media. Many of its stories and its problems are unheard of and the few times that one hears of them are hardly remembered amidst the blaze of information. That it can provide a lot of fodder for thought to any curious traveller in South Asia is needless to say. Sonepur is perhaps one of those places to start with, in Bihar. The range of art, especially the Madhubani art from the region, the architectural and historic attractions of the region’s Buddhist and Jain history, and the excellent street food is enough to make a visit to Sonepur memorable. The must-eat is of course the ‘bhang ka pakoda’, a fried snack laced with cannabis resin, that is otherwise a delicacy on the famous festival of Holi around the country and in our case, a regular with visitors to Asia’s biggest cattle fair.

of circles and lives

sunrise on the Ganges

Varanasi is a place that gleams. It gleams at night, when the lamps on the ghats cast their soft impressions upon the rolling waves of the Ganga. It gleams at noon as the sharp rays of the sun reflect onto the eyes of a careless onlooker. And it gleams at dawn and twilight with colours that would make a mixed palette left to fade in an artist’s workshop. The splash of lights and colours in its busy markets and in the rows of shops that line the ghats reflect upon the people who flock to this bustling town every day. The rail link between Mughal Sarai and Varanasi, opened in 1862 and the rail-cum-road bridge across the Ganga which was opened in 1887, made sure that this famous ancient town of worship was more accessible for visitors from across the region.

Today, Varanasi is nothing like it was when its first railway station made mass transit a realisable dream for many. Varanasi today, like many other famous small towns and cities in South Asia, is facing a continuous friction between the ‘new’ and the ‘old’.  Someone who has lived and grown up in the pre-colonial localities of Delhi and Lucknow may well be able to sympathise with Varanasi on several different grounds. As the cramped and narrow gullies of Old Varanasi, home to the silk workshops of many famous Muslim weavers of the Julaha caste, contend with the issues of livelihood, a few miles away lie extremely posh residential areas which are seemingly oblivious to the hundred and forty thousand strong slum population in the city.

Dashashwamedh Ghat in Varanasi

With a deep location within the historical development of the various distinctive Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Jain traditions in South Asia, Varanasi is a microcosm in its own right. The Dashashwamedh Ghat, supposedly named after Brahma’s sacrifice of ten sacred horses, is a household name with anyone who is fond of the city. A stone’s throw away from the gilded facade of the massive Kashi Wishwanath Temple, this ghat is witness to a lengthy ritual worship of the Sun god and the god Shiva every evening which attracts devotees and tourists in hordes. Spectacular displays with fire light up the face of the river as the drone of the chanting makes everything else inaudible, taking everyone in its wake as the ceremony progresses. The acclaimed film maker Satyajit Ray made these riverside ritual gatherings part of his subject in the famous film based on his equally famous detective novel, Joi Baba Felunath, which brought out the sinister as well as the beautiful around these ritual practices in Varanasi.

The other equally famous ghat in Varanasi is the Manikarnika Ghat, a site for ritual cremations on funeral pyres. Mostly done with sandalwood, hundreds of dead bodies are lined up at the ghat for cremation. Broadly, the Dom caste, which is traditionally an untouchable caste, is responsible for dealing with all that is deathly in dominant Hindu society. It is in Varanasi that this form of oppressive and stigmatised division of labour has perhaps also given Doms a visible prominence, as the ritual order considers working with dead bodies a polluting act and hence needs the Doms. This has also led to the famous titular role of the Dom Raja in Varanasi while at the same it has also meant that the caste-marked livelihoods of many depend on sifting through the ashes of dead bodies in search for precious ornaments like rings or even gold teeth as well as discreetly re-selling ornamental funeral shrouds which are otherwise meant to be specific to each funeral. Beyond Manikarnika ghat lies the Harishchandra Ghat, which is a similar site but is used by families which can’t afford expensive sandalwood. Together, these two ghats hold the term, the ‘burning ghats’, as the funeral pyres are forever burning, a sombre sight on the breezy dark nights along the Ganga in Varanasi. 

the ruins at Sarnath

Within the Buddhist tradition, Varanasi occupies an equal place alongside Lumbini and Bodh Gaya and is a stone’s throw away from the deer park at Sarnath. Buddhists from Sri Lanka and Indonesia regularly visit the city which has also led to the national airlines of these countries to designate weekly direct flights to the newly built international airport outside Varanasi. The Chaukhandi stupa, a short ride away from Varanasi, is a dominating structure atop a huge burial mound. Its previous architecture from the Gupta period has also been modified under the rule of the Mughal emperor Humayun and stands testimony to the many transformations of religious life in the last millennium in South Asia.

Piety has many faces in Varanasi and it would be naive to assume that it is all there is. The city’s many realities are tested against this image time and again and travellers in search for the many-sided and complicated facets of cities would find a lot of food for thought in Varanasi. This city’s immigrant foreign population, much of which is composed of Israeli Jews or residents of the C.I.S states and Eastern Europe, work as yoga assistants or as voluntary labourers in different Ashrams, drive rickshaws or participate in sex work. The impious in the holy city of Varanasi are patrons of non-Indian sex workers, wholly aware of the fetishism of ‘white’ women. These and many other paradoxes are the complicated reality of many cities in the world, to which Varanasi is no exception. While it is important to critically see through the many facades of the city and question its many representations without harbouring prejudiced judgement, it is also important to understand how these differences exist together and against each other, producing a fuller travelling experience.

a poster advertising Ustad Bismillah Khan

Varanasi’s famous silk sarees, known world over for their intricate embroidery and weaving, along with its famous silver ornaments and other metal work is an understated attraction. The weaving process of the Benarasi Silk sarees is a long and arduous one which makes each sari a unique one. Add to that the delicious cuisine of Old Varanasi, most popular during the festivals of Budh Purnima, Maha Shivratri and the Ram Leela, and there is a treat at hand for all the senses as well as the mind. To top it all off, a Banarsi paan (sweetmeats wrapped in betel leaf) and a Bhaang Thandaai (flavoured cannabis-laced cold milk shake) after the meal would make it an experience like none other.

Varanasi has produced many stories. Its voice has been heard across miles of land and sea through those who have spoken of its depths or sung of its beauties. If you have been spellbound by the late Ustad Bismillah Khan playing the Raag Maalkauns on his famous shehnai at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, then you would love to see the city where it all began. If you haven’t done either, make the trip anyway – you’ll hear the brilliant shehnai renditions at the Kashi Wishwanath Temple every evening. It is where the great Ustad started off as well.