I ate a paan in Benaras

It’s taken me a few months to digest everything that I saw and took in Varanasi. It’s an absurd metropolis of memory, silt, silk and myth. It made me wish I had been there sooner, and I had gone with more time. There was just so much to take in, to listen to. We walked by the ghats for a long time, while I spotted names and sights only recognisable in other people’s memories and books.

I can’t quite capture what Benaras was like. For a change, I was short of words and description.

                                            On a small boat, on the Ganga,
                                         were three women from the delta.
                                        Each with a prayer, and a womb,
                                                    Full, empty, happy.

                                           Their bangles descend to silt.
                                            And their million bra-hooks.
                                           Undone swiftly by the current,
                                            Boobs hanging resplendent.
                                             Praying for miscellaneous,
                                                    and the rather, odd,
                                              thankless male descendant.