Banaras: Walks Through India's Sacred City by Nandini Majumdar [rare books]

Book Summary

Banaras: Walks Through India’s Sacred City is a richly textured walking guide to Varanasi (Banaras), offering readers intimate glimpses of the city through twelve curated neighbourhood walks. Each chapter corresponds to one walk (for example, Assi, Shivala & Sonarpura, Madanpura, Manikarnika, etc.), starting with maps (ancient and recent) and guiding the reader through lanes, ghats, workshops, temples, mosques, relics and ruins, while weaving together history, myth, architecture, living communities, artisans, rituals and street life. 

The author’s aim is to help the reader “unravel the city’s secrets” — to see beyond chaos and the first impressions of tangled streets and noise, and to witness the rhythms, the sacred, the everyday, the crafts, the devotional life, and the aesthetic beauty of Banaras. Some of the walks highlight silk‑weaving in Madanpura, ghats along the Ganga, Sufi shrines and mosques, ancient water reservoirs, mythological sites, and relics and ruins of the city.

A recurring theme is how Banaras is constantly changing — yet retains a spirit, what locals call “Banarasipan” — of openness, abandon, continuity with tradition, sensory richness, and a kind of living layering of time The book is not just for tourists but for anyone who wants to walk, observe, reflect, and experience the city deeply. The combination of beautiful photographs by Constantino Schillebeeckx, fold‑out maps, comparisons of older and newer maps, along with descriptions of sights, smells, colours, sounds, makes it evocative as well as informative. 

About the Author

Saraswati Nandini Majumdar (often simply Nandini Majumdar) is a writer and musician who grew up in Banaras (Varanasi). She is associated with NIRMAN, a non‑profit organization in Varanasi working in education, the arts, and cultural exchange.  Besides Banaras: Walks Through India’s Sacred City, she has written children’s books (for example Satya’s Boat, Rain!, Cows, The River at Night) published via NIRMAN. 

Her work is deeply rooted in her lived experience of the city: its lanes, its people, its culture and its contradictions. Banaras is both a love‑letter and an act of preservation: she has stated that proceeds/royalties from the book will be donated to NIRMAN for arts and community revitalisation in Banaras.