Pandeypur's Khajuri Ramlila opens its 131st year on Sunday at Pandeypur crossing, committee president Vijay Kumar Gupta said, with mukut puja, devastuti, a Kshirsagar tableau and the birth of Shri Rama listed for the first night.
The neighbourhood production sits on a different scale from Ramnagar's town-wide walk, yet it carries the same autumn calendar that fills Banaras lanes with drums and masks each year. Gupta's office-bearers include vice-presidents Mahendra Bharti, Kishori Sonkar and Pankaj Chaubey, general secretary Surendra Kumar Yadav (Bablu), secretaries Ramprasad Jaiswal, Hari Yadav and Suraj Sonkar, and treasurer Rajkumar Kannaujia (Pappu). Vyas roles are with advocate Banshidhar Tiwari and Gautam Pandey; Vineet Kumar Tiwari will conduct the show.
Priests from Shri Hanuman Mandir and Choonaveer Baba Mandir are listed among participants, with Sanjay Yadav handling information for the committee. For local families, the opening night is less a tourist spectacle than a ward ritual: children get front rows, elders take the plastic chairs, and shopkeepers keep tea glasses moving until the birth tableau closes.
Sunday's bill is deliberately foundational. Mukut puja and devastuti settle the sacred frame before Kshirsagar and Ram Janm introduce the child Rama. Later nights will move through the familiar arc toward Dussehra. Exact curtain times can slip; residents usually gather after evening chores rather than by a printed minute. Loudspeakers here, unlike Ramnagar, are common, so the sound carries into adjoining lanes.
Citywide, other Ramlilas are already mid-season. Ramnagar has crossed into the exile chapters, and neighbourhood stages such as Shivpur and Bhojubeer have drawn late crowds in the past week, as noted in Dalimss coverage of Shivpur's Ram Barat night and Bhojubeer's Vishwamitra and Tadaka episodes. Pandeypur's opener adds another free public stage on the northern side of the city for families who cannot cross the river every evening.
How to watch: arrive early if you want a clear sightline at the crossing, keep the lane open for two-wheelers, and follow volunteers if the crowd spills toward the temple side. Photography is usually tolerated without flash. Donations, if you offer any, should go to the committee table, not to informal collectors. Keep a bottle of water; October evenings in the open still run warm before the night chill.
For parents, the first night is among the gentler episodes. There is devotion and noise, but not the battle scenes of later October. Carry a shawl for children who fall asleep on shoulders, and plan a short walk back through Pandeypur's lit stretches after the aarti. If you live toward Sarnath or the northern colonies, this stage is closer than Ramnagar's shifting locales.
Shopkeepers along the crossing treat the month as a seasonal bump. Temporary snack stalls appear, and auto drivers learn the evening choke points. Police usually keep a light presence on opening nights; visitors should still park clear of the performance radius and avoid blocking emergency access.
What comes next on the Khajuri calendar will be posted by the same office-bearers as the season unfolds. Sunday only locks the opening grammar: crowns blessed, gods praised, the ocean of milk imagined, and a child Rama introduced to a ward that has told the story for one hundred and thirty prior years.
If you cannot cross to Ramnagar this weekend, Pandeypur is the closer option for many northern colonies. The 131st opening is a reminder that Banaras does not keep its Ramayana in one fort town alone. It keeps it in crossings, temporary stages and committee registers that still list every secretary by name.
Committee volunteers usually rope a soft perimeter an hour before showtime so processions and motorbikes do not cut through the acting space. If you are coming from outside Pandeypur, ask for Khajuri Ramlila at the crossing rather than a formal auditorium address; locals know the stage by that name. Opening night sets the tone for the month: respectful noise, crowded footpaths, and a story Banaras still insists on telling in the open.
