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the number of cows in Varanasi and think almost invisible under the thick layers of at least as far as traditional tourism goes.
how many pats they drop in your average red paint smeared on it, chanting a man- Varanasi is not a tourist haven in terms of
day, you can understand why the streets of tra and holding smouldering incense sticks specific sights, it's a tourist haven in terms
Varanasi are coated in the stuff. It helps to in his outstretched hands; on the steps of sitting and watching, and I did a lot of
keep the dust down, but it means you have around a chai shop men sit and chat away, that. I wandered up and down the ghats
to keep your head down when you're walk- their sticky glasses filled with sickly tea and staring at the scenes before me, and I visit-
ing, especially at night. their plates smeared with the remains of yet ed temples, mosques, forts and all the other
another dangerous-looking Indian snack; a buildings that appealed.
At night the place is transformed, and not shopkeeper squints through his half-moon
just because nobody can tell what they are glasses at his books by the light of a kero- In the end, I sat amazed as the Varanasi sky
treading in. Frequent power cuts notwith- sene lamp, adding up figures in his head and burned around me, and in the morning re-
standing, the ill-lit arteries of the heart writing down totals and stock levels with an alised that if I had to pick one place in India
of the city provide you with plenty to see: old pen; and all the time the atmosphere of to recommend to people to visit, this would
peering in through a half-closed door you Varanasi, an indefinable feeling that perme- be it.
can see a father teaching his son the tools of ates these ancient lanes, makes it all seem
his pan-making trade, the child's eyes wide worthwhile and strangely seductive, de- Top: The bustling streets of Varanasi just off the
with wonder in the flickering candlelight; spite the obvious squalor, smell and suffer- Ganges river. Opposite: Hindus flock to the Ganges
smoke billows out of a dull red glow where ing. I challenge anybody to come to Varanasi with fresh-cut sugarcane to celebrate Ganga
large pots of milk boil and men manufacture and not be moved. Mahotsav, a major local festival celebrated in
trays of sweets, silhouetted demons sweat- November.
ing in a man-made inferno; a man stands in As for what I actually did in Varanasi, well
front of a statue of Ganesh, the stonework that's the funny thing. I did almost nothing,

Wine Dine & Travel Spring 2014 33