20 years ago, in the gnarled woods below, I sat in darkness waiting for moonrise, aware of other travelers like me silhouetted between the trees, cross legged, fumbling with bags and cameras. When the full moon rose to light the city, the stupa and the wooded hillside, I looked around, startled. One monkey even dangled a camera from his shoulder, perhaps lifted from a tourist passing through the world's endless turnstile of folly and enchantment. When she told the story, she wished, she said he was younger. Riding into Banaras from the airport on a sputtering trishaw, the 2-cycle engine overheats and we break down.
Villagers appear from wattle and daub huts, potters and farmers, shy and curious.
We are aliens dropped from space. They are aliens risen from steamy thickets of earth. They touch and stare. We do the same. Behind us, chartreuse fields settle with amber dust in slanting sun floating with dragonflies.