Kashi Vishwanath: A temple that captures the Hindu spirit

Kashi Vishwanath: A temple that captures the Hindu spirit

Neha Srivastava
Travelogue

I cried.

Don’t remember much of my first Kashi Vishwanath temple trip although mom swears it had happened when I was a child. The second trip was much more recent, April 2014. I was excited to visit one of the most important pilgrimages known to Hindus. 

 

We landed in Kashi at the peak of a typical hot UP summer, but the site of our beautiful heritage hotel that gave an old “haveli” vibe with a gorgeous mural of Shiva, cheered our spirits. After quickly freshening up, we called a taxi and headed straight to the temple. The cab dropped us outside an alley surrounded by two-wheelers and cars. Two policemen stood on both sides of the alleyway with a board on top that read, “Kashi Vishwanath Temple Gate” in Devanagari. He must’ve brought us to the parking side entrance, I thought. We hopped out and asked the driver as to how we could get the prasad for offering. “You’ll find it inside”, he said, pointing to the alley. 

Equality does not mean sameness

Equality does not mean sameness

Neha Srivastava
Opinion Writing

If our backgrounds, hopes, dreams, languages, expressions, bodies and preferences are all different, then how can one feminism define us all? If we insist on boxing women into one monolithic feminism, it is bound to fail many of us, as it will devolve into a competition of who can shout louder.

This is when privilege steps in. An English-speaking, rich, urbane woman will always have more access to amplify her voice over that of the native-language speaking subaltern. This often leads to “saviour complex”. Well-meaning but privileged women start imagining that they can be the representatives of these underrepresented native women and they can “uplift” their lives by advocating “change”, “reform” and “progress”. Underlying this, is the troubling assumption that subalterns lack agency, are too meek to decide for themselves, and share the aspirations of the progressives. This is exactly what is happening in Sabarimala.