During the worst period of the second wave of Covid-19 in India, there was a fog of fear and tragedy over two of Varanasi’s main cremation ...
During the worst period of the second wave of Covid-19 in India, there was a fog of fear and tragedy over two of Varanasi’s main cremation ghats – Manikarnika and Harishchandra. The horrors managed to cause a stir in my hometown – a city otherwise numbed to the daily rituals of death.
But just a few kilometres away, the popular Assi Ghat faced an ancient silence. The ghats and temples were suddenly hushed without the presence of visiting pilgrims and tourists, of priests leading the daily calls to prayer, or boatmen splashing their oars and buzzing their motors.
It is to this silence that Rakesh Kumar Singh, 47, returned every day during the lockdown to check up on the most precious of his possessions: his books. Singh is the owner of the Harmony bookshop, a beloved establishment with a store-front that opens up to the picturesque ghats and the Ganga river. While Harmony remained shut during the lockdown, Singh still had to return to ensure that his collection of nearly 20,000 books didn’t get spoiled by the humidity close to the river.
It isn’t just the humidity of the river that Singh needs to worry about – in the past, his concern has often been the...
