Between the Lines of Banaras A literary walk through the city

Few cities have been written about as often as Banaras, or by such a range of voices. Tulsidas is said to have composed parts of the Ramcharitmanas here. Bharatendu Harishchandra, often called the father of modern Hindi literature, was born in the city in 1850, as was the poet and dramatist Jaishankar Prasad in 1889. Premchand was born in Lamhi, a village on its edge, and set many of his stories in and around it. Visitors wrote about it too, among them Mark Twain, who called Benares older than history.

This walk is storytelling first. Your guide selects passages in Hindi and Urdu, with English translation, and reads them where they make sense: by the river, in a lane, on the steps of a ghat. Between readings you hear about the lives behind the lines, the societies and presses that made the city a centre of Hindi writing, and the way Banaras has been described from inside and out.

Visits are included only where a literary association is verified, and the route is agreed with you before the day. Some stops may be houses or institutions with their own opening rules, and others are simply places that appear in a text. If a particular writer matters to you, tell us, and the guide will shape the walk around that writer's work.