That day, I was standing on one of the ghats in Varanasi.
The river Ganges was flowing in front of me, and on the opposite side was a shore where there was almost nothing.
No glowing lights, no crowds, no grand stone staircases, no row of shops.
I stood there for a long time, just gazing at that far bank.
Then a simple question crossed my mind—
"Why was that side left behind?"
The river flowed over there as well. The sun rose there too. The wind blew there just the same. And all it took to cross from this side to that side was a single boat.
Then what happened that Varanasi kept expanding on this side, while that opposite shore was left behind in time?
A single decision that changes everything
Perhaps, long ago, someone made a choice— "The city will be built on this side."
Just one decision.
After that, ghats were built here. Stone steps were carved into the riverbank. People gathered on those steps. With the people came shops, lights, commerce, and slowly, history itself made its home on this side of the river.
And on the other side?
On the other side, there was perhaps the exact same river, the exact same soil, the exact same sky.
But progress never reached there.
I began to ponder — was it really just destiny that wrote such a quiet fate for that shore?
Or did someone, perhaps without even realizing it, make one small decision that left it standing on the other side?
The strange tale of two shores
How strange it is.
Sometimes, the distance between two places isn't very large at all.
It's just the width of a river.
Yet, one bank becomes a bustling city... while the other bank becomes a lifetime of waiting.
Life is quite similar
Perhaps life works in much the same way.
Two people can start their journey from the exact same point. They can dream the exact same dreams. They can put in the exact same hard work.
Yet, at some turn in life, one of them finds a boat.
And the other is left standing on the shore.
We look at them and say—
"Maybe it just wasn't in their destiny."
But who truly knows?
Maybe it wasn't destiny. Maybe opportunity never arrived. Maybe no one built a bridge for them. Or maybe no one ever simply stopped to think—
"Something could be built on that side too."
Looking back at that far bank
That day, as I looked at that distant shore, that was the thought I couldn't leave behind.
The river belonged to both sides.
The distance wasn't insurmountable.
Yet how did the stories of these two riverbanks turn out so completely different?
Perhaps that is the story of every unseen, forgotten shore—
It didn't need to cross the river to become a city; it just needed someone to look in its direction.
If reading this stirred a thought inside you, do share it. Perhaps you too have a distant shore waiting in your mind.