Cricket

Exhausted, my attempt to sit down on the train seat failed and instead I performed something closer to a withering slump. Of course I have never been a morning person and it might have been easy to write off my lack of energy to a simple lack of sleep but that would simplify the situation beyond the plausible. The vitality had left my body long before the alarm started its infernal beeping and I would have been just as tired if the sun had woken me instead. Something in the air had been slowly sucking the life from my body each day since we arrived in Varanasi. Resting helped slow the process but even after lying motionless under the ceiling fan the mid-day heat continued to drain me. I would like to blame this creeping lethargy on the sun and its relentless heat that stalked me through the day but that would be a lie. As with most places in the world the sun gives Varanasi a respite for about half of each day. I think instead that the smells and the sounds were responsible for my mind's incoherence. Unlike the heat they never really left. Day and night they stalked and hunted me. Like a wounded prey I never managed to truly relax.

Again the wind spun in a vortex as it slipped over the buildings, through the tangle of alleys, bringing the smoke of the funeral pyres through the window. I got up from the bed to close the windows against the soot. Later I would try to open them in the hope that the wind might have shifted and instead be carrying the smoke out over the river where it belonged. Once I made the mistake of walking onto our balcony. The view had been enticing; a wild string of fires reflected in the perfect black mirror of the Ganges. The moon had risen high in the sky lending a caressing light to the watchers as they said a silent goodbye to their dead. I had thought to share that moment with the night quietly watching from afar. My bare feet sank into months of ash and the open door flooded the room with the hard sounds of metal striking metal as sledge hammers pounded spikes into logs splitting tree trunks into easily burned widths. On the adjacent street a taxi found itself boxed in by a slobbering bovine. The driver thrust his body weight onto the horn and bellowed from the open window in an attempt to free himself and his fare. Instead of moving the cow proved it had plenty of fiber in its diet and added to the odor of ash, sewage and composting garbage. Defeated I walked back into the room and closed the door. Beautiful footprints of ash followed me in and only left off their pursuit when I entered the shower.

Watching the ceiling fan cut its merciful circles I tried to regain the peace I had lost during my attempted voyeurism. The closed door blocked out most of the noise and heavier smells. I might have drifted into my accustomed fitful sleep had a new and furious round of chanting not erupted. I recognized the sounds. Every time a new body arrived at the fires these same chants wafted up to the second story window. This time however, the volume dwarfed all that had come before it. Again I opened the balcony door and this time witnessed a mob of men bellowing their chants. Instead of the normal solemnity they brought with them a palpable anger. Pushing and yelling they carried a litter to the river’s edge. The mob furiously set upon the body with sticks, beating the corpse from all sides as they hurled insults and venom. When the fire arrived the body burst into flames and for the first time I could see that this body had never seen life. Rather, India’s cricket team had lost and the players burned in effigy on the bank of the sacred Ganges.

When I tried to sleep that night I only managed to watch the circles of the fan and wonder at how little of this place I understand.