Varanasi, Benares, Banaras, Kashi--

Sitting of the banks of the Ganga on a cement bench, under a cement umbrella, the sun sets behind us. This crook of river flows North, before setting out East again. The water is high from rains in the mountains, and the water laps gently halfway up the walls of the bathrooms set into its banks.

The city stretches out North and South like the hollow of a crescent moon. It rises up behind us in sandstone and brick, pungent, earnest, seedy. Electric lines run in lazy droops from one nasty snarl to the next. There is a cockroach for every crevice, and a ficus for every shrine or temple. the alleyways traverse the city like some mad spider's web, barely wide enough for the cows, nevermind the pilgrims, bicycles, motorcycles and -scooters, beggars, hawkers, idle bystanders.

Swifts circle overhead. A devotee, shaved head, bathes in the river, standing on the steps and sumerging himself completely three times in each direction South, West, North, East. Muddy water. A smell wafts up from the water that smells of rot--I remember the bloated-blue body of a goat we saw, caught among the boat lines two days ago--but mostly I smell charcoal burning somewhere else.

The swifts careen helix-style in to roost. A man collects his laundry from where it was drying today, on the top of a neighboring cement umbrella and held in place with bricks. The swifts trill dominates the air.