At some point you leave the page you arrived on. Finding yourself upon the edge of another city of the same name: a city of many names; Benares, Kashi, Varanasi, avatars and incarnations of this living place. And then you step into the alleys, a labyrinth of sorts winding into themselves, stepping out of the date upon which you entered them, stepping out of the flow. Confused and mapless you, maybe, find a sign to somewhere you’ve read about, an arrow scrawled upon a wall.
Following as the alleys narrow, fold in upon themselves on this first meeting, follow as you wonder at this place. Winding through glimpses of orange, the scent of spice, snatches of music, a Babel of languages, the path continues, already lost. Meander, between bikes and cows, through this impossible place, displaced wanderer upon these shadowlands bridging the ages.
And then, maybe, you stumble into the open, the Ganges flowing beneath you, the smoke rising from the burning ghats casting its haze upon the breeze. And here, upon the ghats, everything changes. The certainty of here becomes a transient point of view, another echo upon the stone of this eternal city.
words and pictures 