INTENSE CITY

In an antique train overcrowded with weary passengers we arrive at Mughal Sarai Railway Station in Varanasi. The world outside the barred window of the train throbs with passengers and porters with suitcases piled on their heads. Women in flowing saris follow casually along the platform as vendors race towards the train to sell warm snacks and sickly sweet cardamom-spiced tea in earthenware cups.

As soon as we step onto the train platform a gigantic mass of humanity simply swallows us up in its wake and takes us up the stairs, through the station, and into a noisy crowd of rickshaw-pullers, hotel touts and postcard selling children. The morning air is scented with a rich bouquet of incense and spices mingled with sandalwood and marigold flowers.

If you had to choose one city to represent everything that is truly Indian, you would probably choose Varanasi. However, Varanasi is not a tourist haven in terms of specific sights. It is more of an experience that shakes your whole entity, your state of mind, and all of your senses. It seems that on the banks of this sacred river anything is possible. The sacred and everyday life merges easily in Varanasi. Devout Hindus consider Varanasi to be a unique meeting place between heaven and earth where gods and goddesses can descend to this world and mortals can be transferred directly to the after-life.

We walk along the banks of the river Ganges as the sun rises like a halo above the city, illuminating the countless temples that form the west bank’s skyline. The arrival of the golden dawn brings thousands of worshippers through the shroud of mist and down the long flights of stone steps called ghats, which reach like roots into the river.

A very active boat culture exists all along the ghats and embarking on a trip at dawn is a wonderfully atmospheric way to see Varanasi. We find a skinny man in a loin cloth who offers to take us across the Ganges for a small sum. As the sky grows lighter and the mist begins to dispel, our boatman takes up his oars and we pull away from the shore, across the surface of the dark and mysterious waters. The chant of early morning prayers, punctuated by ringing bells and the loud snap and bang of morning laundry being thwacked on rocks echoes across the river. Thousands of people stand in the water, facing east across the river, praying and pouring water out of urns held up to the sunrise, heralding the gift of a new day.

As our boat approaches the somber Marnikarnika burning ghat, we put away our cameras since photography is prohibited. Contradictory to the West, life and death coexist harmoniously in Varanasi. Living and dying are both celebrated. The boat drifts by a cluster of foreigners who stare transfixed in morbid fascination as thick grey smoke billows up from several sandalwood pyres while bodies of relatives are brought in on stretchers, entirely wrapped in red and gold fabrics and covered in marigolds. First the relatives wash the body in the Ganges to purify it and then the body is placed on top of an orderly pile of logs by men in white loincloths called doms who are from a special untouchable caste. Next the doms neatly stack more logs on top of the body before lighting the pyre. It doesn’t take long for the fire to catch, and at any one time you can see two or three bodies burning steadily in the river breeze. Later, the ashes will be scattered onto the waters of the Ganges.

A typical body takes three to four hours to burn and often there is usually a large bone left over like the hips or lower back. The unburned bones are simply thrown into the river as well as the ashes after they are sifted by a man called the Watchman for gold and silver, which he keeps. The boatman also informs us that “not everyone is able to die in Varanasi because the sandalwood needed to burn the bodies is very expensive.”

After the joyous, yet solemn process of salvation for the dead, a fascinating place to visit is the old city of Varanasi which is located just behind the main ghats. Winding your way through the deep narrow and ancient alleys that are seething with life is a deeply exhilarating experience. Most of the streets are no wider than eight feet and although they cannot accommodate cars or rickshaws large numbers of aimlessly wandering holy cows are free to roam the streets. There are a hundreds of unique and colourful shops to explore in this bustling marketplace. Down one lane you can find naan bread that has been freshly baked over a fire and rich Indian sweetmeats for sale while in another twisting lane, vendors are selling silver bracelets and earrings, sitars or other Indian musical instruments and brightly painted puppets or wooden toys. There is a magical quality present in these ancient alley ways that is strangely seductive and as old as faith itself.

In the evening the Ganges is ritually put to sleep at dusk. This involves various ceremonies that take place along the ghats. As the river rippled past, we released our offerings to Mother Ganges; a floating candle made from one dry leaf with a few marigold petals on it along with a wick in a dab of butter-oil. The candles are placed in the river where they are taken across the shimmering surface of the Ganges by its gentle current.

Looking out across the Ganges, there are thousands of these floating candles, flickering like constellations on the water. It occurs to me how easy it is to feel connected to the divine in this spiritual atmosphere that has sustained India and her people through the centuries.

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Nassau Street is home to the laid back and wonderfully disorganized Ideal Coffee Café, a casual locale with a low key décor of vinyl booths and mismatched coffee mugs. A large coffee roaster sits in the middle of the cafe surrounded by giant burlap bags of fairly traded coffee beans.

“You know what I love about Kensington Market,” my friend says casually sipping his coffee, “It doesn’t give me any corporate logos unless it’s printed on the side of my long necked glass bottle of Coca Cola imported from Mexico.”

This area west of Spadina, called Kensington Market is a unique community of narrow streets and alleys, some of which are lined with colourfully painted Victorian houses. The bustling lanes of the market consist of a variety of food stores selling an eclectic mix of meats, fish and produce. The area is also home to funky dimly lit boutiques selling a wide variety of cheap and used clothing, as well as a number of discount and surplus stores.

On busy days, the market is every bit as chaotic as street markets around the world: with a cacophony of sounds and smells and a culturally diverse crowd. People are attracted not only to the good prices but also to the rich multicultural mix that exists in the market, obvious in the shops packed with goods imported from Europe, the Caribbean, the Middle East, South America and Asia.

Kensington Market has a rich history. The first settlers to the area came from the British Isles. Their legacy remains today with the English names they chose for the tightly packed streets that make up the market. In the early 1900’s the British relocated to affluent areas of Toronto, and the market began to attract more diverse immigrants to its community.

By the 1920’s, 80 percent of Toronto’s Jewish community had settled in and around Kensington Market, worshipping at over 30 local synagogues. Merchants sold a variety of goods from hand-pushed carts bolted down in front of their homes. The economy began to prosper and their business began to spill out onto the lawns, onto their porches, and even into the main floor of many of their houses. The “Jewish Market” was born.

By the 1930s the carts were gone and the goods moved into the front room of the family home and became the first store fronts of the market. Soon the area became a thriving marketplace with kosher meat processing plants and chicken slaughterhouses added to the mix.

After World War II, the original Jewish population began moving to wealthier suburban areas in Toronto and Ukrainians, Hungarians, Italians, and Portuguese began to move into the neighbourhood to make a new life for themselves.

By the 1960s the Portuguese were the market’s largest immigrant community. They added their own colour to the eclectic mix of cultures in the market by influencing the types of goods sold and expanding commerce onto Augusta Street.

In the 1970’s, Toronto Mayor David Crombie, who was strongly opposed to the massive urban restructuring plans that were popular at the time, crushed plans to tear down the densely packed small houses and replace them with large apartment style housing projects.

Today the neighbourhood is a noted tourist attraction as well as a centre for Toronto’s cultural life as many artists and writers live in the area. Land prices in the area have rose drastically, but despite its increased appeal to professionals, Kensington Market still remains a predominantly working class, immigrant community.

The fact that the market is pedestrian friendly also adds to its charm. The narrow streets and the density of pedestrians and cyclists discourage drive-thru traffic. On weekends and peak shopping hours, it is actually much faster to cycle or even walk through the market than to drive. In 2004, residents and businesses organized a series of Pedestrian Sundays where parts of Augusta St., Baldwin St. and Kensington Ave. are closed to motorized traffic and the market is transformed into a street festival. There is free live music, dancing, street theatre and games all along the closed streets.

The market continues to evolve by attracting people from all around the globe. Every wave of immigrants has changed the city in its own way,” says Toronto Mayor David Miller. “Toronto’s success is neighbourhood-based. The face of the streets is the face of the world.

Nowhere is that more prevalent than in Toronto’s unique Kensington Market.

(Photo: Jewish market day, Kensington Avenue, Toronto, Canada form Wikipedia)

Situated among the forty-plus buildings that comprise Toronto’s Distillery District in a dramatically reinvented old Pump House is a café named after one of the greatest French writers, Honoré de Balzac.

Balzac’s is a busy place where affluent couples relax over lattés and croissants and artsy Torontonians come for their caffeine fix before visiting the numerous art galleries. The cafes soaring walls and dark-wood-and-raw-stone interior with its décor of French tables and chairs is reminiscent of Parisian cafes.

In 2003, Balzac’s cafe was the first business to open here in Toronto’s refurbished Distillery District. Today the area is a postcard scene filled with galleries, artists’ studios, artist workshops, restaurants and retail sites. However underneath the reputation that the Distillery District is the “ultra-chic’ place to be and be seen in Toronto there is a rich human history.

In the early 1830’s an Englishman named James Worts came to what is now called Toronto to scout for a location to establish a mill in which to process flour grown from newly settled lands in Ontario. James Worts’ bother-in-law, William Gooderham, arrived in 1832 along with 54 people that included their wives, children, and servants to join him in the milling business.

In 1834, depressed because his wife had died in childbirth, James committed suicide. William Gooderham, took control of the factory and re-named it Gooderham and Worts. The “Worts” was for James’ eldest son, James Gooderham Worts, who inherited his fathers’ share of the firm. In 1837, with a surplus of wheat, William Gooderman tried his hand at producing beer and whiskey. It wasn’t long before he discovered that more money was to be made from converting the grain to alcohol rather then flour.

Over the next 150 years the company Gooderham and Worts developed into the largest distillery in the British Empire. It produced millions of gallons of distilled whiskey and spirits that was exported throughout the world. After World War l, prohibition was enforced and the business slowed down. In 1990 after over a century and a half of continuous production the distillery ceased operations.

In late 2001 Cityscape Development Corp. and Wallace Studios purchased the property for $15 million, and began converting the 13-acre sight into a pedestrian-oriented arts, culture and entertainment neighbourhood. Matthew Rosenblatt, a real estate broker for Cityscape is quoted in the Globe and Mail describing, “Our vision was to combine the romance and relaxing atmosphere of European walking and patio districts with the hip, cool dynamic of an area like New York City’s SoHo or Chelsea, where creative minds get together and you feel as if anything could happen.”

In 2003, after the massive restoration and development project was completed and the district was reopened to the public. All the prospective tenants were hand-picked by the new property owners and absolutely no franchise or chain operations were allowed. As a result, the area has attracted a plethora of unique boutiques, art galleries, restaurants and coffee shops, as well as The Mill Street Brewery, a micro brewery well known for their organic ale. The upper floors of several buildings have been converted to studio spaces and leased to artists or office tenants with a “creative focus”.

The Young Centre for the Performing Arts, a new theatre built on the premises is home to The Soul Pepper Theatre Company as well as to the George Brown College Drama Department. There are also plans to develop residential condominiums, offices and more retail space on the vacant lands that surround the district in the near future.

Throughout the year the Distillery is filled with activity day and night with live music, outdoor exhibitions, fairs and special events all year around such as the Distillery Jazz Festival, Partigras, and the Roots Music Festival. It has also been used as an atmospheric location for over 800 film and television productions in the past decade, including Chicago, X-Men, Against the Ropes and The Hurricane.

We had lunch at The Boiler House restaurant in the heart of the district. They offer a magnificent Sunday Jazz Brunch complete with eggs benedict & endless slices of succulent roast beef. The restaurant’s award winning industrial-chic design includes a massive 22 foot wine rack, intimate private rooms and hand crafted heavy timber tables.

The Distillery District is a National Historic Site that has been designated for protection under the Ontario Heritage Act since 1976. This is because it contains the largest and best preserved collection of Victorian-Era industrial architecture in North America. The public can take a fascinating tour to see and hear about how whiskey was made in the various buildings which were used for malting, fermenting, making pure spirits and storing the young whiskey in barrels in order to age it.

The distillery district is Toronto’s first pedestrian only village and the city’s only historic district. This unique neighbourhood is a wonderful place to take an afternoon walk while exploring the Victorian brick and limestone buildings while soaking in the history of what was once the largest distillery in the world.