The last day in Varanasi

The University and the shops with the famous benarasi sarees

Today we decided to visit the university. Benares Hindu University is a very famous university. When I was searching for a place to study Indian art history, it was here that I found the biggest and most interesting range of perspectives. Here, one could learn Hindi language and Indian dance.

The first place we saw there was a Hindu temple which is the center of the campus and a major tourist attraction. On the other side, an avenue of mango trees leads to the main administration building with the offices of the rector. It turned out that we arrived too early (before 10:00a.m.) and this was a holiday period (Holi festival was coming), and everything was closed. We didn't feel like waiting and hence we wandered through the area here and there, looked into the museum building for a moment, and then we went back towards the ghats where finally we wanted to buy a famous varanasi silk sari.

The day before, at the hotel, we met a silk dealer who invited us to his shop. After a long search, we found his shop, which turned out to be a small cubicle filled with materials on the shelves, on the floor, all over. Unfortunately, I could not find anything interesting there, and the prices seemed to be exceptionally high, so quickly we excused ourselves and fled from there. The main street is full of a variety of shops with saris and other clothes, it was there that I bought an inexpensive golden sari, and in the next shop the Anarkali style suit ( similar to the dress that Anarkali, played by Madhubala, wore in the famous movie Mughal-e-Azam).

On the way back we met a talkative girl, who pointed us to a cool restaurant where we drank lassi. In the evening we went to say goodbye to the doctor and collected the choli for my new sari from a tailor nearby (he was terribly busy with preparing hundreds of cholis and other outfits for the Holi festival).

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