Prabhu Ghat

Prabhu Ghat is one of the calmer, unhurried stone landings on the great sweeping arc of Varanasi's riverfront, set in the southern Bhadaini reach between Tulsi Ghat and the cluster of Jain, Nishadraj and Panchkota ghats.

• Built in the early twentieth century by a Bengali patron named Nirmal Kumar and later renamed in honour of Maharaja Prabhu Narayan Singh, who ruled Banaras from 1889 to 1931, the ghat carries the memory of the last great princely age of Kashi.
• Its stone steps descend in broad, weather-worn tiers to the Ganga, and unlike the floodlit theatre of Dashashwamedh a couple of kilometres to the north, Prabhu Ghat wears no showy face.
• It is, instead, a place of ordinary sacred life.
• This is above all a living, working ghat.
• Families of boatmen (the Nishad and Mallah communities who have ferried pilgrims for generations) make their homes along its upper terraces, and each morning the dhobis, the traditional washermen of Banaras, spread rinsed cloth across the steps to dry in long bright ribbons of colour.
• Watching a dhobi swing and slap laundry against the stone at first light, with the river turning from pewter to gold behind him, is one of those small, honest scenes that photographers and slow travellers treasure far more than any staged spectacle.
• Because the ghat sits on the standard boat-ride corridor from Assi to the burning ghats, most visitors glide past it from the water; stepping ashore here instead rewards you with an intimate, unglamorous slice of everyday riverside Varanasi.
• Historically, Prabhu Ghat and the adjoining Nishadraj Ghat were a single landing until they were divided in the first half of the twentieth century, and the name honours a maharaja best remembered for his philanthropy, including the donation of roughly 1,300 acres of land that helped found Banaras Hindu University nearby.
• There is no temple complex or grand palace to tick off here; the pleasure is atmospheric.
• Come at dawn for the soft light and the ritual of bathers greeting the sun, or in the golden hour before dusk when the ghats to the south glow warm and the river traffic thins.
• For the vegetarian traveller, Prabhu Ghat sits in friendly territory.
• Varanasi is one of the most vegetarian-comfortable cities in India, and the nearby Sonarpura and Assi neighbourhoods are dotted with pure-vegetarian sweet shops and thali houses.
• Ksheer Sagar at Sonarpura is a reliable, spotless pure-veg stop for chhena sweets, kachori-sabzi and lassi about a kilometre away, while the Godowlia lanes hold Banaras institutions such as Kashi Chat Bhandar and Keshari Restaurant.
• One local caution worth knowing: some famous lassi and thandai counters in Varanasi serve bhang (a cannabis preparation) mixed into their drinks, so always ask specifically for plain lassi or plain thandai if you want to keep your riverside morning clear-headed.