Golghar Market

Golghar is one of the oldest trading pockets in the tangle of lanes that make up Chowk, the historic commercial heart of old Varanasi.

• The name — literally "round house" — recalls a granary-style circular building that once stood here, a landmark that lent its shape to the whole neighbourhood long after the structure itself disappeared.
• Today the granary is gone but the name endures, attached to a dense knot of galis in the Ghasi Tola area, barely a few hundred metres north of the Kashi Vishwanath temple and the Kaal Bhairav shrine.
• This is not a purpose-built shopping mall or a tourist bazaar dressed up for visitors; it is a genuine working market where Banaras has bought and sold cloth for well over a century.
• Wander in and the specialisation reveals itself quickly.
• Golghar and its neighbouring lanes — Kunj Gali, Rani Kuan, Sati Chautara — form part of the historic Banarasi-sari trade, a craft economy said to be more than two hundred years old and tied to the era of the old kings of Kashi.
• Shops here deal in brocade silk saris, dress fabric and yardage, along with the full spectrum of everyday goods: footwear from embroidered mojaris to trendy slip-ons, home décor, household items, gifts and daily necessities.
• Many outlets are wholesale as much as retail, so prices reward patient bargaining, and the deeper you go from the main lane the more you shift from souvenir-hunting to the real supply chains that dress the city.
• It is best experienced as a slow, curious walk rather than a targeted errand — one shopfront of shimmering silk gives way to the next, the smell of incense drifts over from temple lanes, and cycle-bells and hand-carts keep the corridor humming.
• For the vegetarian traveller, Golghar sits in one of the most reliably satvik quarters in all of India.
• The old-city lanes around Chowk and Godowlia are overwhelmingly pure-vegetarian, so you can graze without a second thought.
• Step out to the nearby Dashashwamedh Road for Kashi Chat Bhandar's legendary tamatar chaat and palak chaat, sink into a paneer-rich thali or crisp South-Indian platter at the long-running pure-veg Keshari Restaurant, or start the morning the Banarasi way with kachori-sabzi and jalebi at Ram Bhandar.
• Everything within an easy walk is meat-free, egg-free and alcohol-free, in keeping with the temple town's deeply rooted culinary traditions.
• Practically, treat Golghar as one stop on a wider old-city ramble.
• Combine it with darshan at Kashi Vishwanath, a look at the fierce Kaal Bhairav temple a couple of lanes away, and an evening drift down to Dashashwamedh Ghat for the Ganga Aarti.
• Come by mid-morning when shutters are fully up, keep valuables close in the crowd, and let the labyrinth do what it does best — surprise you around every corner.