Kaashi

In Kaashi,
time does not pass—
it accumulates.
Layered
in the endless swirl of the Ganga.

Each step on the ghats feels ancient,
as though your feet remembers,
something your mind has forgotten.

At Manikarnika,
the fire speaks.
You don’t watch death,
you feel its inevitability—
not with fear,
but with a quiet reverence.
Here, impermanence is not a tragedy.
It’s the truth.

And still—
life pulses wildly around it all.
Sizzling kachoris on street corners,
laughter echoing through narrow gullies,
the clink of temple bells,
a thousand small joys unfolding all at once.

In the motion,
I found a strange stillness.
A simplicity,
not in what Kaashi shows you,
but in what it strips away.

I went with questions.
I came back quieter.
Not with answers,
but with an awareness.

And maybe that’s what Kaashi did.
Took a part of me,
and gave back something
older,
truer,
less afraid.