The jewellery seller
Leaning against
The Tower of Baba
I stop by her ad-hoc shop
Mapping my way home
In my mind
From here
A set of stairs
Like a hundred others
All along the the Ganga banks
For miles north and south
Except these stairs
Lead home, almost straight
Up up up, climb to the top
Then straight east
Along the narrow alley
Fingertip-to-fingertip wide
Cobbled stone
Concrete walls
Peeling, weathered paint
In muted colours
Broken by
Intermittent doorways
The alley soon enough
Leads hard left
Then hard right
Past the guesthouse
Through the covered passage
A quick peer
Into the Shiva temple
Then down the stairs
To Bengali Tola
The main street of Kashi
Old Varanasi
4,000 year-old Varanasi
I turn left
Onto the thoroughfare
Wide enough
For a scooter
To squeeze by
A pedestrian
Lined with Sari shops
And tea shops
Restaurants
And craftsmen
Candy stores
And shoe stores
Crowded with shoppers
And shopkeepers
And tourists
And those simply going
From one place to another
At the Music School sign
Turn right
Straight for a while
Then a jog right
A jog left
A right
And on the left
The back entrance
Somit Guesthouse
flapflapflapflapflap
A hundred feathered wings
Ruffle the air
Startled
From my dreamy mapping
I raise the camera to my eye
And follow the pigeons
Wheeling all around me
When the shutter clicks
The lens has landed on her
The beautiful jeweller
Leaning against
The Tower of Baba
Demurely
Turned away
I put the camera down
She raises her eyes to me
We share a smile
And a nod
Before I make my way
Up the stairs
Toward home
Passing the platform
Where the pigeons alight
To peck at seed
Spread there
By a friendly hand
Startled again
They take to the air
All aflutter
Once again
The Ganga Banks (Ganges River)
Kashi (Old Varanasi)
Uttar Pradesh, India
Taken during travels, 2017