Diana L. Eck’s Banaras—City of Light.

Death was a business here, not a tragedy.

The images serve a daily reminder to the people of Banaras: no matter who you are, you will end up at either of these ghats someday.

‘Temple? What for! I last went there—wait, let me think—twenty-two years ago.’ ‘What prevents you?’ ‘Why should I go to the temple to see God? What’s the point of praying to a stone? Do you actually get to see the Divine? For me, everybody is God. He (pointing to Nishant) is God, you are God, I am also God. Cleanse this first’—he taps his

VARANASI IS THE fusion of Varuna and Asi, the two rivers that meet the Ganga here, their confluences barely seven kilometres apart.

THERE ARE TWO Banarases. One is a geographical entity, India’s holiest town, located in the state of Uttar Pradesh, peopled by pilgrims and tourists, pictures of its ghats instantly recognisable to anyone with the faintest knowledge of India. The other is a culture, a way of life, inhabited by citizens whose betel-stuffed mouths will tell you how

that to find Banaras I must lose myself in the galis of Banaras. He also tells me that Banaras is the city of Shiva and here no one else—no matter how mighty—matters.