Ghats and Glimmers: Peace She Claimed for Herself

Returning to Banaras for Chhath, she learned that devotion could be tender without being self-erasing.

Coming Home

As a classical dancer living in Mumbai, she rarely slowed down. Yet every November, she flew back to Banaras, where dawns smelled of sugarcane and the ghats hummed with Bhojpuri bhajans.

This year felt different. The same relatives who once mocked her career now wanted her to lead the rituals. Respect felt good—but expectation crept in again.

The Weight of Water

Standing waist-deep in the Ganga at Assi Ghat, she watched the women around her hold their breath for impossibly long minutes, palms outstretched to the rising sun.

Her mother whispered, “Offer everything. Sacrifice is the purest prayer.”

Sacrifice was how every story about women in her family ended. She wanted a new chapter.

Inventing a Softer Offering

She decided her arghya (the water offering) would include boundaries:

• She would dance the traditional Vandana at the ghat, but she would also perform a piece she choreographed about consent.
• She would wake up at 3:30 a.m., but she would not stay quiet when relatives commented on her unmarried status between chants.
• She would pray for the river to stay generous, and she would pray for herself to stop apologising for needing rest.

Conversations with the River

Her prayer sounded like this:

*"Surya devta, give amma the stamina she asks for. Give me the courage to return to Mumbai without guilt. Let the next girl from our mohalla know she can bring her whole self to the ghat."*

A New Kind of Peace

When the sun finally rose, she felt homesick and hopeful at once. Devotion no longer meant dissolving. It meant witnessing the women around her, honouring the river, and still holding onto the self she fought to build in the city.

She boarded her flight back with sindoor on her forehead and a boarding pass in one hand. Peace, she realised, can look like both.