Writer Charukesi Ramadurai has been to Varanasi, the holy city in India’s north, several times. But she’s never experienced the spiritual epicenter from the back of an electric rickshaw driven by a team of changemaking local women. This is Holy City Rickshaws, and they’re here to empower.
It’s pea soup weather the morning I step out of the car near Varanasi’s Assi ghat, one of the most significant sets of stairs leading down to the Ganges River. There’s a boat waiting to take me down river to a ringside view of the morning arti—the daily Hindu ceremonial lamp prayer. But winter has other plans.
The mist is so thick I can hardly see my own hands, let alone enjoy a ride on Ganga ma—Mother Ganges—India’s holiest of rivers. Sunrise is at least an hour away, and my boatman has no idea when there will be enough visibility. I’m told to simply wait the weather out.
The fog lifts, both literally and metaphorically, a couple of hours later when four electric rickshaws pull up at my hotel entrance. A small crowd has gathered around the vehicles, bright orange in color and festooned with dozens of balloons. But what’s really caught the crowd’s attention is the people, or more specifically—the women, who are driving them.
Dressed in smart gray salwar kameez suits and orange vests, big sunglasses and a touch of lipstick, Anjali Goyal, Kaushalya Devi, Suman Patel and Rashmi Singh smile and wave at me. They’re cheerful, confident and entirely unfazed by the curious crowd.
This is a good thing, because wherever we go, gazes follow. As we putt down the city’s serpentine roads, I notice men on motorbikes turning their heads to gawk and jeer, women peep out of their own rickshaws for a better look, and whenever we stop, we attract a mini mob in minutes. Today, I feel like the pied piper of Varanasi.
From the back of the e-rickshaw I see holy cows sharing paths with uniformed school children; hawkers selling wares outside colorful temples dedicated to Lord Shiva; a group of marauding monkeys dance across rooftops where international yogis are gathering to salute the sun. We eventually fetch up at the verdant campus of the Banaras Hindu University for a photo stop near the Vishwanath temple.
At a local chai shop, where we’ve stopped for a cup of sweet spiced tea, four more women riders join us for a chat. Although the drivers come from varying backgrounds and are different ages—the youngest is 19 and the oldest is in her mid-40s—their stories share similar themes: No formal education, no financial or emotional support, with some women confined to their homes and others forced out to work as cleaners or cooks—for poor pay in even poorer conditions.
“After I got married, I had to wear a ghoonghat and stay within the four walls of the house,” soft-spoken Meera Devi tells me, referring to the veil that married women use to cover their heads and faces. “If someone had told me even five years ago that I will be driving a rickshaw around Banaras, I would have laughed at them.”
There’s a palpable sense of sisterhood here, a camaraderie with much laughter, many jokes—often at each other’s expense—and steady support. When one of them lags behind in the traffic, the others in front slow down for her to catch up; when one tears up sharing stories of her life, the others form a protective hug around her. This collective strength works to reassure themselves and each other.
Having heard their stories about pushback from family and society, I ask if that doesn’t bother them. “The most difficult thing for us was to step out of home,” Kausalya Devi says, tightly gripping the hands of another driver next to her. “But with [driving], we have moved ahead in our lives, now there is no going back.”
“We have two ears, one to listen to the criticism and the other to let it out,” Goyal pipes in with a laugh.
Later, I’m walking through Varanasi’s historic center with another pioneering young woman—Intrepid tour leader Parul Rana. This old area of the city runs along the ghats and is a place where life and death jostle for space; where ceremonial fires from ritual prayers mingle with the fumes from burning funeral pyres.
As we navigate our way through the confusing warren of laneways, stopping for numerous snacks as recommended by Rana, I notice that the river is never too far away. “Banaras is all about ghats and gullies,” Rana says, referring to the riverbanks (ghats) and the lanes (gullies) leading to and from them.
Indeed, in this town, the spiritual and secular definitely exist together. Tourists and locals alike brush haunches with the holy cows jamming up the lanes, as they make their way to either the nearest temple or the nearest chaat bhandar (street food stall). And on any given day you might overhear a devotee swearing ardently about the potency of a certain deity or the piquancy of a particular samosa.
I certainly understand the devotion. Over the course of three hours, Rana expertly leads me to a host of her favorite stalls to taste a host of fried delicacies, everything from tamatar chaat (a Banaras specialty bowl made with fresh spiced tomatoes) and aloo tikki (potato cutlets) to kachori-sabzi (savory pastry with a spicy vegetable side) and crisp, sweet jalebis (sugared funnel cake).
While walking, and eating, Rana tells me that her own late father was a rickshaw driver, whom she proudly remembers as working night and day to be able to educate his two daughters. I’m reminded of the Holy City Rickshaw Women who are taking it upon themselves to do exactly that.
We wash our feast down with a cooling sweet lassi (yogurt drink) at the popular Blue Lassi Shop which has been serving over 80 different flavors, from pomegranate to cashew, since 1925. And to top it off: a very special paan. This Banarasi specialty is a combination of areca nuts, tobacco, lime and rose petals, all wrapped in a fresh betel leaf. It’s a potpourri of flavor, and the ultimate digestive.
We try to burn some of the food off with a stroll on the ghats, watching families and groups of friends take tentative dips in the river or huddle together on the steps in worship. Sadhus (holy men) in flowing saffron robes sit in quiet meditation, while dhoti-clad priests walk around, ready to offer spiritual assistance in exchange for a small fee. Now that the skies have cleared, the boatmen are doing brisk business taking tourists on sunset river cruises.
As the sun begins to set, Rana suggests we stop at Dasashwamedh ghat to observe the evening arti. It’s a mesmerizing spectacle of synchronized gestures by young men in traditional robes, offering flowers, camphor and finally, roaring flames to Mother Ganga, who flows on unheeding.
As I watch the orange flames of the arti, my mind goes back to the similarly-hued rickshaws, and the brave women who have stepped out of their comfort zones to drive them. Perhaps Ganga Ma will be the source of strength for the women of Holy City Rickshaw Co. I can only hope.
