Kaleidoscope City : A Year in Varanasi By: Piers Moore Ede

Kaleidoscope City : A Year in Varanasi

• Author : Piers Moore Ede
• Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
• ISBN-13 : 9781408868102

About Kaleidoscope City : A Year in Varanasi

‘I will never forget my first sight of the river in Varanasi, from the narrowness andconstriction of the alleys, thronged with activity, to the sudden release of thewaterfront, the labyrinth’s end . . . It seems that all of life has its assigned place onthe stone steps leading down to the Ganges. Some are used for bathing, others forlaundry, washing buffalo, puja (worship, ceremonial offering), and this one for thebusiness of death. The smells are of wood smoke, buffalo dung, urine and jasmineflowers. The sounds are of rustling kites and lowing cattle, crackling wood andprayer. . .’Piers Moore Ede first fell in love with Varanasi when he passed through it on his way toNepal in search of wild honey hunters. In the decade that followed it continued to exertits pull on him, and so he returned to live there, to press his ear to its heartbeat and todiscover what it is that makes the spiritual capital of India so unique.In this intoxicating ‘city of 10,000 widows’, where funeral pyres smoulder beside the riverin which thousands of pilgrims bathe, and holiness and corruption walk side by side,Piers encounters sweet-makers and sadhus, mischievous boatmen and wearybureaucrats, silk weavers and musicians and discovers a remarkable interplay betweendeath and life, light and dark.

About the Author

Piers Moore Ede has contributed to many literary, travel and environmental publications, including the Daily Telegraph, the Times Literary Supplement, Ecologist, Traveller and Earth Island Journal. He is the author of Honey and Dust, winner of a D. H. Lawrence Prize for Travel Writing, and All Kinds of Magic. He lives in East Sussex with his wife and daughter. piersmooreede.blogspot.co.uk

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