We arrived in India looking for places on a map and kept finding people instead. A rickshaw driver who told us he would still be there when we were ready. A guide who walked faster than we could understand. A man beside the Ganges who showed us where the dead were carried to the river.
We followed alleys, stairs, rivers, temples, and whatever road our driver happened to take. Sometimes we understood what we were seeing. Sometimes we didn’t. Varanasi was full of movement—smoke, bells, traffic, water, pilgrims, animals—and somewhere inside all of it, we stopped trying to make the city hold still long enough to explain itself.
Qutb Minar lay only a few kilometers away. We’d decided to walk.
Rickshaws continued pulling alongside us every few hundred meters, each insisting they would take us there for free. By now we understood enough about India to know that nothing was free.…
Eighteen months later, Dani found it—buried in the lower floors of the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. Russia of all places.
The museum stretched endlessly, room after room of imperial accumulation, but the basements held the strangest pieces.
Serbian coffins carved from logs, still smelling of resin.…
Varanasi’s airport had three gates. None had jet bridges.
Instead, passengers reached the tarmac through a large set of double doors at the back of the building.
Chains and padlocks held them together, leaving a two-inch gap between the doors.
Outside, a storm of locusts gathered against the glass beneath the setting sun.…
The airport line didn’t move.
Clothes hung from open office windows, lifting and falling like flags in the air conditioning.
A booth opened.
Then closed.
A coworker stopped to talk to the attendant.
A vendor walked through the line carrying a pot of chai.…
We arrived at Gurdwara Bangla Sahib just after sunrise.
Buses hadn’t started bringing tourists yet. For now, the worshipers outnumbered visitors.
As we stopped outside the entrance, an Indian man overheard us talking.
“You’re American?”
“California.”
He smiled.
“Me too. I’m from Sacramento.”…
We reached Ambrai just before sunset.
The old hotel overlooked the lake, and an army of waiters in white tuxedos drifted quietly between the tables.
One led us to a table at the water’s edge.
We opened our menus, then forgot about them almost immediately.…
The conductor wore a cowboy hat and sported a handlebar mustache below his aviator sunglasses.
Even before climbing aboard, he’d taken special interest in Dani and me.
Making sure we found the right bus among the parking lot.
Making sure we bought the right tickets to Ranakpur.…
We stood beside a busy intersection on a dirty road, far from the tourist trail.
Every rickshaw driver who passed recognized us as lost tourists.
One pulled over and waited.
He knew we needed a ride.
Our destination was three miles away.…
A short drive north of Varanasi, we climbed out of the rickshaw.
A man stepped into our path.
“Guide, sir? Guide? Without me, you will see, but you won’t understand.”
We smiled, thanked him, and kept walking.
After twenty steps Dani stopped.…
The stainless-steel doors looked modern and out-of-place against the building’s tired-looking facade.
A sheet of pink printer paper taped to one of them.
Government of India.
Dani pulled them open, and we walked into the trap.
~
It took a minute for my eyes to adjust.…
A giant triangle rose from the ground like the fin of a buried ship.
Around it stood bowls, ramps, stairways, arches, and curved walls of pink stone, each angled toward a different part of the sky.
Nothing here looked like a temple.…
At the fourth crossing, Dani stopped a woman walking down the street and asked if she knew the way to our guesthouse.
The woman understood us but struggled to answer in English.
She scrunched her face in concentration.
“One hundred meters.…
Stone walls and wooden gates blocked our path through the city’s pink walls into the park. A man stood outside. He looked like a security guard.
“Is the park open?”
He bowed slightly, then motioned toward the gate with such enthusiasm that I felt silly for having asked.…
I turned to leave when Arbaaz stopped me again.
“Are you hungry? I can make you and your wife dinner.”
Dani answered first.
“No. But, thank you.”
Arbaaz paused.
“Well, you can always go next door for a snack.”
He pointed through the window to a glowing light coming from a neighboring house.…
Back in Jaipur, when we mentioned Agra, people didn’t argue about routes or hotels.
They argued about the Taj.
They began with the story, telling it like always.
“Shah Jahan built the Taj for his favorite wife, who died giving birth to their fourteenth child.…
Koon Homestay lay on a dead-end street stemming from the main road running between Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal.
We could hear Agra hustling a hundred yards in the distance, but that commotion didn’t reach us. None but those who lived here ventured into this neighborhood, and that made it off-limits to everyone else.…
I left Dani sitting on a bench while I visited one of the vendors along the train station platforms.
I scanned the stalls, but all I found was water and a bunch of bananas.
The bananas sat on the counter, brown and soft.…
Old Delhi pulled us apart.
The streets weren’t especially wide, but every inch belonged to someone. Rickshaws squeezed between bicycles. Pedestrians flowed around handcarts. Motorcycles nosed through impossible gaps. There wasn’t room for Dani and me to walk side by side.…
“I’m Rocky.”
Our boatman stood on the docks—barefoot, “London rodeo” T-shirt, palms like oars. Bright eyes peered over his graying beard, hinting at more youth than his worn body otherwise suggested.
“Rocky … from Assi Ghat.”
Dani looked at him.
“Hi.”…
At Queen Café, a split-level room served as both restaurant and home.
A single dining table occupied the lower level. It was heavy and oak, scarred from years of use, with bench seats running along its length.
Above it, connected by a ladder, sat the family’s living room.…
As we turned to leave Akbar’s Tomb, our self-appointed guide cupped his hand before him, casting his eyes to the ground as a sign of respect, and uttering words under his breath.
We didn’t hear him at first, so we stepped closer.…
We began looking for the metro station entrance to take us to the airport when a young man approached us.
“Where are you going?”
His arms were shaking with visible agitation.
“To the airport.”
“Oh, that’s what I thought. Well, you can’t go to the airport here.”…
I awoke with the sun, but I didn’t hurry to start my day.
The train felt calm and quiet under me.
Our car didn’t rock or sway against the tracks.
Shadows didn’t pass the windows.
I lay in wait, praying for our arrival in Varanasi, but feeling more and more doubtful with every passing second.…
“Veg or non-veg?”
Obee stood on the edge of Nahargarh Fort, watching the sun drop behind Jaipur.
Dani shrugged.
“Both”
Obee hesitated, took a drag from his cigarette, and glanced at his friend, Salil, in the fading light. The tip flared red then faded.…
Three times last night, we’d found ourselves at the same intersection.
A jam of standing people and police officers, so dense that the bicycles that dared drive through the alleys elsewhere in Varanasi couldn’t make progress.
Police whistled for people to clear the road.…
