Cleaning up the spirit of Varanasi

Every evening the Dasaswamedh Ghat at Varanasi gears up in piety Pundits in billowing saffron robes prepare to take stage The conch shell reverberates as the sun goes down and incense sticks are waved with a flourish Tourists with folded hands pray from balconies of homes around the ghat they pay a fee to the residents who live near the ghatFar in the distance at Prabhu Ghat at the same time every evening Temsutula Imsong secures a mask around her face picks up a broom and a bucket and steps into swathes of filth Withered marigolds offered by pilgrims squelch under her feet She sidesteps the piss the shtPrabhu Ghat before Temsutula Imsong began cleaning itOn Mission Prabhu GhatSoon after passersby join her Tourists pick up the buckets Imsong and her friends line up at a corner fill them with water from the Ganga and splash it across the ghat Some locals avert their faces and walk on But Imsong is sure the ghats of Varanasi will be as clear as the spiritual epiphanies pilgrims claim to have herePrabhu Ghat after Imsongs team cleaned it upldquoMy aim through Mission Prabhu Ghat is simple to clean all the ghats of Varanasirdquo 32yearold Imsong says over the telephone one afternoon an hour before she would head out for her daily cleaning ritualTemsutula ImsongIt all began after a boat ride across the Ganga MidFebruary Imsong and her friend Darshika Shah bobbed away at the stretch between Assi Ghat and Prabhu Ghat ldquoI remember we were speaking about the evenings we had spent gazing at the Ganga sharing our lives and secrets when it hit us ndash Prabhu Ghat was nothing but an open lavatory It is the prettiest ghat in Varanasi But in broad daylight it makes for a pathetic sightrdquo remembers ImsongTemsutula Imsong in red cleaning up Prabhu Ghat at Varanasi with other volunteersImsong works for the NGO Sakaar which focuses on rural initiatives Every day at 4 pm she Shah and two other volunteers assemble at one of the ghats Prabhu Ghat at present and begin cleaning it In no time she says at least 15 even 40 people join them Over the past six weeks Imsong and her group of volunteers have cleaned four ghats in the VaranasiImsong first approached the civic authorities to ensure she had the requisite permissions in place When asked whether the officials offered to help her Imsong smiles ldquoNot really They seemed busy and asked us to go aheadrdquo Imsong and Shah pooled in R5000 for Mission Prabhu Ghat and have already spent half the money on cleaning equipment ldquoMission Prabhu Ghat has received an overwhelming response on social media mdash more than 30 lakh tweets Even PM Narendra Modi acknowledged our work on Twitter In the coming months we want to use this attention to find enduring solutions to Varanasirsquos plight We could keep cleaning the ghats but we realise that in the long run Mission Prabhu Ghat will work only if people stop littering the ghats in the first placerdquo says ImsongSome indifferent localsOf course Imsong and her team get their share of brickbats mdash men openly ogle at the girls and locals who have living at Varanasi since decades tuttut at the initiative Others are plain indifferent ldquoI choose not to look at them Because for every person who dismisses this mission there is a local tourist or a pilgrim who joins in and cleans with us for hours Once a French tourist saw us and exclaimed that she would go and bring her friends along She did and they stayed the evening to help us Thatrsquos what matters to merdquo says ImsongIn many ways Mission Prabhu Ghat is just an extension of the work she has been doing since she was eight years old As a child growing up in the village Ungma in Mokokchung district in Nagaland Imsong would take up the task of cleaning up her village as part of the youth group at church ldquoOnce a month for years we would visit different areas of the village and clean it up If the days were too dusty Irsquod spray water on the streets Otherwise Irsquod carry a broom bigger than myself and sweep the streetsrdquo she laughsChanging the face of KashiImsong came to Varanasi twoandahalf years ago because she wanted to be more involved with Sakaar After graduating from St Maryrsquos College at the North East Hills University in Shillong Imsong worked as an online educational tutor in New Delhi and also finished her masters in Human Rights ldquoBut my heart lay in working for rural initiativesrdquo she saysWhen Imsong first came to Varanasi she was appalled at the dirt the traffic and the apathy ldquoPeople have thrown up their hands here saying Varanasi will be as it is mdash spiritual yet full of squalourrdquo But Imsong refuses to accept this ldquoSo I will change it One ghat at a timerdquo