A piece of Gujarat CM’s ancestral village flourishing in Varanasi

VARANASI: BJP PM-candidate Narendra Modi can well call the holy city a second home — and not only because he's contesting from here apart from Vadodara in Gujarat. A large Gujarati community from Modi's native village Vadnagar settled in Varanasi centuries ago, and is still closely connected with their home state.


"The Nagars of Vadnagar arrived in Varanasi as soldiers in the Mughal army and settled here," says Rakesh Majumdar, a general physician, from one such family that moved from Vadnagar. Apart from Brahmins and Baniyas, other communities from Vadnagar too used the Nagar title but later picked up other surnames, he says. His own title was Majmudar, but a clerical error at a school in Varanasi made him a "Majumdar".

The famous Hatkeshwar temple of Vadnagar has kept the community here connected to its ancestral village. "Invitation cards printed on occasions like marriages still begin with the line 'Hatkeshwar ki Anukampa se ..." (With the blessings of Hatkeshwar ... )