David's AW News: Varanasi to Kolkata

Greetings from the banks of the Ganges.

Toni and I are in Mr Chatterjee's home town, Serampore , just along the river from Kolkata.

Last week I was telling you about our last day in Nepal, getting a Tika blessing and then travelling to Varanasi on Buddha Air. If you missed it, you can catch up here.

Varanasi is very wet, crazy, busy, noisy as hell, holy cows everywhere, but despite all that, it's surprisingly clean and tidy! I was pleasantly surprised. Plus, we found the people open and friendly and didn't at all get hassled or swamped by beggers.

We went looking for Varanasi silk, real silk.. Because it's something special if you can get it. These days, polyester has been improved so much that it's hard to tell the difference (at least when it is new) and the traders in most touristy areas of India will sell you the fake silk because of the huge profit they can make. However, there is something special about the real Varanasi silk.

It has that Billionaire vibe. Which Toni can absolutely rock.

Mr Chatterjee took us to see one trader deep in the market alleyways not far from the Ganges. After our meeting, he suggested we go to his godown (warehouse), only 5 minutes walk away..

Down tiny alleyways, it's was in a monsoon rainstorm and we had to squeeze past this massive mean looking cow or or was it a bull..

The things we have to do for AW!

Well, we survived to tell the tale.

Later, after meetings with several silk traders, we found a nice family business with close links to the production process. Like almost all artisan products, different parts of the process are done by different people. From the silk farm to the silk looms, to the dyeing house to the stitching and finishing workshop. We wanted to see as much of the process as possible.

That was much harder than we thought, and the traders gave us the run around (trying to palm us off on tourist trap museum style set up), but eventually we made it into the heart of the silk loom quarter and found ancient looms in little family workshops in back alleyways, crammed in impossible spaces. The artisans were wide eyed and happy that some foreigners had taken an interest and were really friendly and proud to show off their skills.

I think I have enough content for a YouTube video, I'll upload something when I get a chance.

Silk is as Ancient Wisdom as it gets, ever since the silk route traders, Marco Polo and all that.

From Varanasi, we took a train to a small town called Kaderma in the middle of nowhere. Midway between Varanasi and Kolkata.

We went to visit a gemstone mine owner who had promised to show us an actual gemstone mine. It was nothing like what I had expected.

I'll tell you about it next week.

Meanwhile, in the EU it's all happening. Lots of new stock and more on the way.

Something big is happening soon at Ancient Wisdom.. Very Big. Stay tuned.

Check out the new Can You Sell This? .. YouTube from Holly here..

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPlqbbqicg0

Anyway, Namaste from India.

We are about to board a flight ftom Kolkata to Delhi. More update next week.

Peace and happiness

David