A visit to the house of Alice Boner
artculturefestival.in
By Vivek Nath Mishra
Despite being in Varanasi and living here for almost three decades, I am ashamed to admit that I came to know about Alice Boner Institute at Assi Ghat only when I began looking for a decent place for my first book launch. Swiss scholar and artist Alice Boner lived in this house almost for more than thirty years. The place I fell in love with at the very first sight. Thereafter, I kept dreaming about this house all day and remained excited to visit the Art library in the building on every coming weekends.
What really attracted me about this building is its elusiveness. Like a beautiful piece of art or poetry it has a charm that can only be sought by a genuinely interested artist. It’s like a beautiful poem that can only be understood by a poet.
The building seems one of the foremost constructions at Assi Ghat, on the river bank. It is just next to the Harmony bookshop – a tiny, charming bookshop that attracts every passer-by like a flower attracts a bumblebee. It’s fairly easy to notice the bookshop as one goes down the street to the river but the house of Alice Boner is almost invisible. One passes it as one passes a beautiful roadside flower surrounded by the long grass. Perhaps, it is as elusive as a rustle viper in the desert. It silently stands there, singing nothing, telling no stories to the ones who have no patience to listen. It has no door in the front, only a verdure balcony strewn with potted plants. The winding lane on the north side of the building that goes up with five or six flight of stairs takes you to the old, small, black painted with coal tar door which eludes you similarly as the building does.
As you enter the main entrance drooping low the first thing you observe is the smell hanging in the air. The building has a familiar smell of nostalgia – the particular smell of an old house, petrichor to be specific. The building has a tiny verdure courtyard, open to the blue sky, in the middle, perfectly romantic for an artistic soul as one can see the bright, surreal moon from the centre. The courtyard welcomes everything, the heavy downpour of the monsoon, burning sunrays of the summers, cold mist of the winters and of course, the pleasantness of short, ephemeral spring. A few sparrows keep hopping and flying from one corner to the other of the inner courtyard seeking for a place to roost.
Rough and slightly uneven floor is made up of stones, resembling the stones used for building Ghats, which feel cold and moist but magically pleasant to the bare feet even in the sweltering, searing summer. Walls are one and a half feet thick which keeps temperature bearable within the house.
It’s a three storey art residency and from one of the corners of the courtyard up goes a spiralling stair – steep, narrow and dark which makes it more exciting when it takes you to the unknown, unseen corridor which opens up on the placidly flowing Ganges, like a big silver screen.
During the monsoon the river keeps swelling, breaks the shores, and keeps coming nearer to the building and once in a while reaches the building itself. As Alice Boner said, during the monsoon the river itself comes to meet me.
There’s a small air-conditioned art library with a fair sized table in the middle surrounded by a few chairs. Instead of blazingly bright modern LEDs there are yellow sodium lights, pleasant for eyes, well suited with the ambience of the place. It allures you with its grave, profound silence to ponder over a piece of art writing or contemplate about your own art. The numerous bookshelves, crammed with old, classic books, are lined up along the surrounding walls. The whole place has an aura which puts a spell on you, mesmerises you as a beautiful piece of art does.
There’s no perfect way to end this short piece than to quote Alice Boner herself what she wrote about this house in her diary: “Benaras, 27.02.1936, house on the Ganges. The stars array and harmony constitutes itself gradually. This house is a strangely soothing and exciting matter. In it I feel withdrawn into myself, into my house, my home. It is so familiar, so welcoming, so warm. It enclosed me with love and opens the world for me. It spreads the blossoming earth out in front of me, the colourful life, and surrounds me with the simple peace of a monastery. I feel fulfilled, happy, settled, and supported, like on a gentle stream.”
Bio:
Vivek Nath Mishra’s short stories have appeared in The Hindu, Queen mob’s Teahouse, Muse India, The Criterion Journal, Literary Yard, Indian Ruminations, Prachya Review, Indus women writing, and on many other platforms. His debut book, Birdsongs of Love and Despair, is out now.
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