Twain’s next stop, the Kameshwar Temple. It’s only about a minute away but that minute in the eccentricities of the Benares Chowk provides the usual hour’s worth of entertainment. This temple is the very opposite of the Golden Temple, being no more than extension of someone’s ramshackle house. It’s the shabbiest temple we have seen in all our time here, but then the immediate area all around it is equally shabby, including the old Honda motorbike parked right up close to Shiva’s gate. A lovely old man, wrinkled and stooped and dusty-orange-robed, emerges from the adjoining house and shows us around while Sita translates Mark Twain’s notes to him: this temple was to Shiva in his guise of the Lord of Desires and one should, “Arrange for yours there. And if you like to look at idols among the pack and jam of temples, there you will find desires enough to stock a museum.” The temple and garden are indeed packed with the pantheon in miniature I am almost expecting a garden gnome to be in there somewhere. We take chai with the temple keeper, make a small donation to keep Shiva in desire fulfillment generosity and move on.
(The Indian Equator)