Kaleidoscope City: A Year in Varanasi

Often relegated to the periphery of most books on India, the holy city of Varanasi (aka Banaras or Kashi) is the main subject of this book based on a year Ede (Honey and Dust; All Kinds of Magic) spent there. Each chapter deals with a theme that defines the city. The emphasis is on the particular rather than the comprehensive. The reader ventures into crowded alleys of the inner city in which sweet confections are manufactured, visits the silk-weaving section of the city, and the palace gardens where the Ram Leela (life of Rama reenactment) is performed. We meet the locals: an Aghori ascetic dwelling in the cremation grounds, a boatman who regularly ferries the author along the Ganges, and many others. Those featured express their views on many topics, notably the ways in which the modern world collides with the traditional, and the reality of rampant corruption.