The ride seemed much longer than it really was, but mostly because the roads are bad and overrun with slightly evolved primates, who drive trucks like free-for-alls going the wrong way in all lanes. Then we entered Kashi, the primordial concentration of cosmic light at the tip of Shiva's trident. The town was a concentration all right. Unruly drivers on narrow roads caused gridlocks all the time. It took an hour to finish the last four kilometers.
As we turned in at the main circle a thandai seller caught my co-pilot's eye and beckoned seductively.
"Mmmmm...thandai", I thought to myself as well.
After unloading at a hotel we headed out for dinner. The Thandai shop was on the way.
"Bhang thandai?" the man cheerily asked.
It had been a long day and we just needed some sleep, so the extra additions were politely declined and we tasted some pretty fine heart-of-North-India-cow-belt thandai.
We then started to explore this fascinating town that had tiny houses and temples, tightly nestled next to each other. Scores of winding roads that got narrower and narrower and finally cobbled little path ways, though this did not deter expert bicyclists and motorcyclists who could zip around these pathways with ease (and with not as many casualities as one would expect).
The river was dark and warm and stretched out into black infinity, merging with the night sky. A beautiful illusion owing to the fact that the entire city is built on the west bank of the river, facing east and the opposite side of the bank is devoid of any building.
The whole place exuded a strong sense of what it would be to live like in a religious Indian town hundreds of years ago. Everywhere there was a temple or a shrine, the town was filled with deities. And filth.
There's something about the rural North that makes it dirtier than the rest of the country! There were stinking piles of cow-dung-food-remnant-plastic-shit everywhere. It was as though there were no more definitions of beauty and ugliness, everything merged into a homogeneous whole.
We wandered by the evening puja of a Kali temple that faced the road. A priest stood in the narrow lane flipping a big dumaroo dhuggaddhuggaddhuggad as he faced the grotesque figure of the blood-thirsty goddess, that devourer of everything, Mother Nature in her destructive aspect.
She stared at us with her crazed-eyes-blood-dripping-tongue, as she stood sentinel before we entered the burning ghat.
"What's that smell?" my co-pilot asked naively.
"It's Death! MWAHAHAHAHAHA" I said.
"WHAT! I thought that was roasting meat!"
"It is!" I continued in dark comic vein.
"Let's get out of here", she panicked. For some reason this sudden confrontation with the dark aspect of Energy seemed to have shook her up.
We walked back trying to find a place to eat. It was pretty late for this sleepy little town and we didn't really know where to go. As we walked through the narrow pathways we proceeded to get increasingly lost.
"I'm feeling really strange," she said, "something came over me at the burning ghat."
"It's just death, everyone dies", but that was not the right answer.
The strange mood continued to hang over us at dinner. The restaurant walls were a sickly, hospital green, and the grungy hum of bad electrical wiring pervaded. The neon white tubelights flickered ever so subtly, it felt like we were unknowingly on the set of an Ingmar Bergman film in over-exposed-colour. We went in because it was the only place that was open, and the menu seemed nice. The fish in the aquarium looked like they were ready to die. The old man who ran the place also looked ready to die. There were dead insects in the electrical zapper that flickered like it was going to die. The food took a long time to come.
"Let's get out of here, I'm not hungry." she continued to be at unease.
"What's bugging you?" I asked.
"I don't know, I just feel really weird. There's something about this place making me feel uncomfortable. Like that buzzing, it feels like it's in my head or something. Something shifted in my perception."
I looked into her eyes, they were bloodshot. The preceding events trickled back slowly. Thandai seller. Customers before us drinking bhang thandai. Our drinks mixed in an uncleaned shaker.
"Oh! I'm stoned!" The realisation did not help, in fact it made her slightly more paranoid.
Eventually sleep wore the effects off. But not before we realised that my co-pilot had been complaining about my continuous smoking at the Mela. And a few hours earlier, as we turned past the main circle into Kashi, she thought for a moment "I wonder what it would be like to walk around in a strange place stoned?"
As we turned in at the main circle a thandai seller caught my co-pilot's eye and beckoned seductively.
"Mmmmm...thandai", I thought to myself as well.
After unloading at a hotel we headed out for dinner. The Thandai shop was on the way.
"Bhang thandai?" the man cheerily asked.
It had been a long day and we just needed some sleep, so the extra additions were politely declined and we tasted some pretty fine heart-of-North-India-cow-belt thandai.
We then started to explore this fascinating town that had tiny houses and temples, tightly nestled next to each other. Scores of winding roads that got narrower and narrower and finally cobbled little path ways, though this did not deter expert bicyclists and motorcyclists who could zip around these pathways with ease (and with not as many casualities as one would expect).
The river was dark and warm and stretched out into black infinity, merging with the night sky. A beautiful illusion owing to the fact that the entire city is built on the west bank of the river, facing east and the opposite side of the bank is devoid of any building.
The whole place exuded a strong sense of what it would be to live like in a religious Indian town hundreds of years ago. Everywhere there was a temple or a shrine, the town was filled with deities. And filth.
There's something about the rural North that makes it dirtier than the rest of the country! There were stinking piles of cow-dung-food-remnant-plastic-shit everywhere. It was as though there were no more definitions of beauty and ugliness, everything merged into a homogeneous whole.
We wandered by the evening puja of a Kali temple that faced the road. A priest stood in the narrow lane flipping a big dumaroo dhuggaddhuggaddhuggad as he faced the grotesque figure of the blood-thirsty goddess, that devourer of everything, Mother Nature in her destructive aspect.
She stared at us with her crazed-eyes-blood-dripping-tongue, as she stood sentinel before we entered the burning ghat.
"What's that smell?" my co-pilot asked naively.
"It's Death! MWAHAHAHAHAHA" I said.
"WHAT! I thought that was roasting meat!"
"It is!" I continued in dark comic vein.
"Let's get out of here", she panicked. For some reason this sudden confrontation with the dark aspect of Energy seemed to have shook her up.
We walked back trying to find a place to eat. It was pretty late for this sleepy little town and we didn't really know where to go. As we walked through the narrow pathways we proceeded to get increasingly lost.
"I'm feeling really strange," she said, "something came over me at the burning ghat."
"It's just death, everyone dies", but that was not the right answer.
The strange mood continued to hang over us at dinner. The restaurant walls were a sickly, hospital green, and the grungy hum of bad electrical wiring pervaded. The neon white tubelights flickered ever so subtly, it felt like we were unknowingly on the set of an Ingmar Bergman film in over-exposed-colour. We went in because it was the only place that was open, and the menu seemed nice. The fish in the aquarium looked like they were ready to die. The old man who ran the place also looked ready to die. There were dead insects in the electrical zapper that flickered like it was going to die. The food took a long time to come.
"Let's get out of here, I'm not hungry." she continued to be at unease.
"What's bugging you?" I asked.
"I don't know, I just feel really weird. There's something about this place making me feel uncomfortable. Like that buzzing, it feels like it's in my head or something. Something shifted in my perception."
I looked into her eyes, they were bloodshot. The preceding events trickled back slowly. Thandai seller. Customers before us drinking bhang thandai. Our drinks mixed in an uncleaned shaker.
"Oh! I'm stoned!" The realisation did not help, in fact it made her slightly more paranoid.
Eventually sleep wore the effects off. But not before we realised that my co-pilot had been complaining about my continuous smoking at the Mela. And a few hours earlier, as we turned past the main circle into Kashi, she thought for a moment "I wonder what it would be like to walk around in a strange place stoned?"
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