‘It Is Not My Fire That Burn You Here’ - Empire of the Soul - page 411

A German tour guide I ran into assured me that dawn here would
arrive punctually at 6:00 a.m.
'Ofer tirty trip I make here,' he assured me. 'Alvays ve leafink vor
der ghat at fife-sirty vor der dawn boatinks.'
'You must like India very much to come back so often,' I remarked,
to be polite.
' Like !' he yodelled. 'I am hatink der country zince I virst zee it,
und iss vorse effery drip.'
'Really?' I wondered if we had a language problem.
'Diss mien bizniss, jah ? I cannot tell der tourizers vere dey go-
ink, am I? Zey vant der Indra, zey gid der Indra, jah ? Or I am makink
grade bick ole in der bank, nein ? I zay go Dailund - zere you vind
preety liddle girlz vor der tree mark, oo zuck-you-vuck-you ole day
und nide. Jah ?' He cackled. 'You haff been? You haff der Dai girlz?'
'No. Not yet.'
'You go now, iss mein advise. Jah! Leaf diss sheiss pitz und ged
der neggs plane vor der Bank-gock.' He slapped me on the shoulder.
'Jah, you ged vuck-you-zuck-you ole veek, not der belly off Delhi.'
'Thanks for the tip.'
After dinner, I sped back to my room. Dawn was still about seven
hours away.
At 5:00 a.m. I was in a rickshaw, heading down to the ghats. Dawn
must have come ten minutes earlier. So much for the Teutonic tour
guide and his thirty trips. No one would have noticed this dawn,
anyway, with low charcoal clouds swooping across the middle air
like the flapping cloaks of warring sky gods. Always a busy time of
day in India, dawn in Benares was a frenetic peak period for every
business remotely connected to religion, which was nearly every
business in town.
The flower-sellers were out in force; this hour comprised almost
their entire business day. The flowers had mostly been threaded
into malas , garlands to place in the god's hands, around his or her
neck, or, particularly here, over the shaft of a gleaming black
Sivalingam. Frequently, malas and other oblations were simply tossed
at the base of an idol. Few could afford enough flowers to garland a
circumference like the mighty lingam in Kashi's Vishvanatha