Happy Diwali, G's

I have left Varanasi and yet again my war against Indian livestock has moved to new soil. While waiting in line to get a train ticket the hell out of Faizabad (more on that later), I found myself in a typically dense line in a small cage-like enclosure they see fit to call the reservations office. About two hours into this almost meditative excercise in monotony,a great yelp erupted from the crowd and people began fleeing from their covetously guarded positions in line. I tried to discern the source of the commotion, and it became quite obvious. Not more than two feet behind me was a gigantic bull, which had found its way indoors and around through the door of the reservations office, and was determined to force its way through the mass of cueing customers. The customers wisely chose not to resist. Having caused such a stir, the longhorned monster was quite content to sit in the corner of the office and swat flies with its tail. Always,fucking cows.

Diwali is a month of good luck and festivals. At its climax is a Festival of Lights, which includes formal rituals and more importantly, fireworks. As such the occasion is much loved by Indian children who spend at least a week prior randomly detonating firecrackers, and is equally despised by Indian monkeys, who have no idea what's coming. There is no creature capable of greater athleticism than an urban monkey fleeing a cataclysm. From a Varanasi rooftop I was treated to a 360-degree panorama of colorful explosions that went on for hours. Indian fireworks are spectacularly cheap and unsafe, so the locals amass sizeable arsenals which they launch gleefully well into the night. There is an added element of excitement as projectiles may misfire in any direction at any moment, periodically sending volatile mixtures of gunpowder and chemically-treated birdshit rocketing ever so gracefully into, say, a third-storey balcony.

The kids, whose enchantment with fireworks knows no bounds, buy firecrackers by the sackful. They have also discovered that the safest and most convenient way to light them is by standing them upright in a cow turd. This is usually fine, until someone misjudges the potency of the explosive and the situation becomes utterly catastrophic, most of all for the children themselves who take no heed of the great distances being rapidly covered by their elders, and are surprisingly slothful for people who know they've just set a bomb in a pile of wet shit. Serves them right.

My last day in Varanasi tied up a lot of loose ends. I finally bought some clothes I've been pretending to waffle on for days to score a better discount. I attended a fire ceremony at the ghats and paid my respects to my favorite saddhus.

I met a guy who calls himself a Truth Speaker, who took me on a tour of the Varanasi underworld. He showed me where the false holy men lurk to count the money they begged from naive pilgrims and buy opium, the stair-alley where a guru was murdered for speaking out against the desecration of sacred river fisheries, and past the boat where a prostitute he particulatly disliked ("nobody likes this family" he alleged) lures customers for illicit contacts on the holy river. Though I had suspected much of what he told me I was glad to see a side of the city most of the tourists don't. Finally he took me into the actual underworld of the city, where an ancient shrine to Vishnu was concealed 25 feet underground through a twisting passage hidden in an alley I doubt I could ever find again.

I'm back on the road. Mo' trains, mo' towns, mo' fireworks at 3am. Farewells can be bittersweet. Some can be sweet. I ran into my shoulder-fondling freakshow one last time. Upon telling him of my immenent departure I saw the last glimmer of hope fade from his eyes as he ungrasped my hostage hands and dissolved into mist, whispering "no ten rupees...". Then he was gone.