We finally reached the waterfall!
We finally reached the waterfall. In my last post, I mentioned I may visit this or another waterfall when I make my grand driving trip to the five sacred towns. That trip will happen within the next few years, and if anyone wishes to join me, sign up now!
Corporate travel is terrible for explorers.
I cover myself with shame!
I repeat: I was ashamed to discover waterfalls near Varanasi, especially after having visited the city so many times. As a corporate person who travels extensively for work, you complete your tasks and head back home. Corporate travel exhausts a person. Targets weigh heavily on your head, as does monitoring the performance of staff who work far away. I've often noticed that remote staff identify more closely with the distributor and their interests, rather than those of the company they represent. Touring, socializing, and too much alcohol tire you out, leaving little energy for anything but the easiest, most obvious places to explore.
Driving three hours on shattered roads was never part of the agenda, unless we drove close to a waterfall en route to the next town.
The rowdy at the fall!
The waterfall was a pleasant surprise, and the taxi driver invited me back one day after the monsoon rains. I was to visit Varanasi in September 2025, but I cancelled my plans because of the downpour that flooded many parts of Benares city.
I had carried my tripod, possibly because I had taken the train to Varanasi. Carrying an expensive tripod on a plane is not a great idea. The visual image of airline staff chucking my tripod around doesn't excite me.
A party of local people picnicked at the top of the falls. The natural beauty of the water cascading into the emerald pool at the base of the hill did not interest them in the slightest. I remember watching them sitting on their picnic mat, singing, shouting; the air filled with their raucous laughter, as they threw their waste into the waters. There were more than a dozen men, all of whom seemed drunk. None seemed to be in a hurry to catch a train home and would have converted me into a bag of minced human if I had objected to their polluting behavior. I didn't mind their loud, uncouth behavior–they did their stuff, and I did mine. The twain did not meet.
But the twain almost met when they threw their garbage into the waters, polluting and destroying nature. Sometimes, discretion is indeed the better part of valor, and I restrained myself, even as I visualized myself as a rampaging Rambo, standing up for a ravaged waterfall.
And so, I turned my back on them, walked gingerly along the slippery rocks, and placed my tripod in the proper position to photograph the water. I removed the bottles from the images, but not from under the cascading waters.
Caution
Time, caution, and domestic bliss are our masters, and when I peered over the edge of the waterfall, I had to fight the powerful urge to clamber down to the pool below.
Time constrained me, and I realized, much to my chagrin, that if I were to clamber down, I'd have to climb up in the dark, and I did not like the idea of a nocturnal, vertical climb. Plus, I had a train to catch.
Caution also constrained me, and I was not keen to clamber down the slippery slope and risk cracking a limb or smashing my camera.
When I made my final calculation, I acknowledged the constraint of domestic bliss. I did not like the idea of getting back to my wife, explaining how I risked life, limb, and camera for that one, exquisite photograph. Your partner often does not view photography the same way as you might.
Sunset
The sun was setting, allowing me time for just one image of a silhouetted photograph of a tree in the final minutes of the golden hour.
Then, we drove to Mughalsarai, reaching there just in time for an awful dinner at the railway platform. I was looking forward to egg curry, but all they served me was watery dal, dusty roti, and mashed, tasteless vegetable curry. The train was late, which was a mixed blessing, and it continued to be delayed before arriving in Delhi about four hours behind schedule the next morning!