Sunday: jinxed by engine, saved by Shiva

I have arranged to meet Anil, expecting to go on his motorbike to visit the Golden Temple. But I arrive late - even by cycle rickshaw it's further than it looks. The streets are quieter than usual, but lined along both sides by sleeping dogs, mostly nondescript fawn in colour, but with a significant sub-group of brown and white patched mongrels. They could be a textbook illustration of heredity.  Anil is not there, so I sit around watching riverboats having their bottoms tarred.

When A turns up, the bike ride isn't mentioned, so I ask him instead to ferry me over to the far bank in his turquoise motor boat. It looks like a party is in progress. The south bank of the sacred Ganga is undeveloped, just gently shelving hard caked mud giving way to flat green fields beyond. As today is Sunday and (even in this Hindu city) a rest day for many, whole families head for the "beach" and splash around in the shallows. A few swim out to deeper water, though I don't see anyone ceremonially dipping. Not having any open sores, I risk a brief paddle up to the knees but keep my mouth clamped shut. Perhaps I should  have warned Anil about me and engines. He cranks up the diesel (no gearbox) to return, but I am the first to spot that there is now no cooling water coming from the pipe.  Soon, black smoke oozes from the engine box. The engine is overheating. I suspect the filter is blocked, but there is no filter, so perhaps the pump is shot. Anil lifts the lid (clouds of smoke) and eases back the throttle (a piece of string) and so we judder across the stream to the nearest point on the ghats. I reward A more generously than originally intended and bid him farewell.                                          

Back in the city, I am enticed into some shops in the alleys where I buy silk scarves (which pass the "ring test"), non-essential essential oils, and incense sticks. I spot a little grey mouse run across the floor of the oils shop. "There's a mouse!" I exclaim. "It's our pet mouse," I'm told. At another shop, buy Neem oil - good for just about everything according to the label - made by a company called Smell of India. They also have a "pet" mouse. Mice must be popular pets in Vanranasi. 

Then rickshaw back to Assi Ghat where NF is expecting me. NF, I find, is in fact named Shiva after the god, which may explain why he was so keen to take me temple visiting last night. This afternoon he has more in store, and we head off by cycle rickshaw to the Vishwarath Temple. To get here we pass through the quiet lanes of the university campus. The comparison with Cambridge may not be as fanciful as I had cynically imagined. The university consists of attractive, oldish buildings in a spacious parkland setting with green lawns, neatly tended flowering shrubberies and many mature trees including coconut palms of enormous height (this is where the comparison ends). The buildings are labelled "Musicology Faculty", "History of Art", "Mechanical Engineering Laboratories" and so forth. Students are not much in evidence. Maybe they are still recovering from Saturday night excesses, as their English equivalents would be. The Vishwarath Mandir, like the university, is cleanly clinical and orderly with a central open hall and a number of small shrines but without any displays of "enthusiasm" such as I saw last night. This is Hinduism for the intelligentsia.

Back to the Rahul Guesthouse to settle my bill, have tea and collect my luggage, pausing briefly on the way to watch a female wrestling match at the Ghat. Shiva wants to accompany me to the station and arrives with a tuk-tuk. Perhaps I should have warned him....  We head off into the traffic but have only gone a few blocks when the engine splutters and dies. It's that jinx again. The driver makes futile attempts to restart it (there's a crank lever as well as electric start, which he is reluctant to use). Then he pushes off us the road where we have become the subject of an almost continuous blare of horns. He opens up the engine, removes and cleans the spark plug, and - reluctantly - the engine starts again. Driver desperately tries to keep revs up, but this is not easy in cloying traffic with a clutch like a lawnmower grip. This charade is repeated four or five times more until we finally abandon the hapless rickshaw outside the station compound. I bid  my god/friend Shiva farewell and thank him for taking care of me.

On Platform 5, I await the train, stocking up with bananas, oranges and juice for the journey. A man pushes along a trolley marked Gaylord, shouting "I scream! I scream!" as he passes. But I don't have a spare hand for a cone. Shortly before the Vibhuti Express is due to arrive, a fat white cow ambles along the track below, browsing on the accumulated rubbish and drinking from the open drain that runs between the tracks. No one shows the slightest concern for the imminent tragedy, least of all the cow. She must have some sixth sense, as, just as the train's powerful headlights loom into view, she transfers her attention to the down line instead. Disaster averted.