Where Am I?

Yesterday I wandered the labyrinth of Old Varanasi in a daze. It had just rained and the air was thick with many things...human ash, motorbike fumes, pooja incense, stinking cow craps. The narrow stone streets had become a small river of sludge. I stopped to admire a huge cart filled with tsuri (typical glass bangles that all Indian women wear, usually 12 on each arm), and pointed to the ones I liked. Soon the tsuri-walla (literally, "the man who sells tsuri") was forcing tsuri onto my arms three at a time as I winced in pain. It wasn't long before a crowd of children gathered to watch, smiling and shouting their support. Some of the older ones counseled me as to which bangles I should have and which were most beautiful. Several of the tsuri broke during the brutal process, cutting my hands. But what is a little blood when nothing makes the locals so happy as to see a foreigner partaking in a most simple and widespread tradition?

Later in the streets I had many many smiles of approval from men, women, children alike.."Vedy niiiice, madam, vedy vedy byoo-ti-ful..."

I think one part of the reason I am attracted to this city is because it is overwhelming and unpredictable. Each and every encounter has the potential to turn into a passionate fight or an unexpectedly powerful connection. They are extreme encounters, all of them.

Varanasi is the city where people come to die; The city of death, dead and dying things. At this moment there is a sick calf lying in the street, breathing faintly and covered in flies. Just another obstacle in the busy street. Another thing to step around. In two days more it will be dead, whereupon they will carry it, like everything else that it dead in Varanasi, to Mother Ganga.