I along with my parents and my younger brother visited Varanasi in the month of July in 2009. I was in class 7 at that time. Our main motive during that visit was to see the solar eclipse. Taregana, Bihar was supposed to have the best viewing conditions to see the eclipse in India. My father felt that we too should have visited Taregana instead of Varanasi. On the day of the eclipse (22nd July), we visited Samne Ghat. The weather was not quite good, it was cloudy and there was possibility of rain too. We missed the first couple of minutes of the eclipse due to cloud cover. But soon, the skies cleared and we could finally see the eclipse. The next day we learnt that the weather was cloudy in most parts of north India. Varanasi was probably the only city which had a clear view. Thank god we did not visit Taregana!

According to Wikipedia, it was the longest eclipse of the 21st century and is not to be surpassed until 13th June, 2132. It lasted a maximum of 6 minutes and 39 seconds.

Here are a few photos from that trip (they are of bad quality):