When India is mentioned to the citizen of a far country it suggests Clive, Hastings, the Mutiny, Kipling, and a number of other great events; and the mention of Calcutta infallibly brings up the Black Hole. And so, when that citizen finds himself in the capital of India he goes first of all to see the Black Hole of Calcutta—and is disappointed.

It was winter. We were of Kipling's "hosts of tourists who travel up and down India in the cold weather showing how things ought to be managed." It is a common expression there, "the cold weather," and the people think there is such a thing. It is because they have lived there half a lifetime, and their perceptions have become blunted.

Many Mark Twain enthusiasts have commented on his life-long dislike of imperialism and the resultant puffed-up vanity of colonialism. The one exception to this rule was the jewel in the crown of imperialism, the British Raj reign of India. Not only did he forgive the British for their incursion but on numerous occasions pointed out how beneficial it was to the natives; how lucky they were to have the British to rule over them.

Our last stops are two in one, both at the next ghat to the south, Kedar. First we climb up the red and white striped steps to the red and white striped South Indian Kedar Temple that Twain called the “Cow Temple”. Shailesh feels sure that by “cow” he means Nandi, Shiva’s bull vehicle and to which then and now the Hindus pray for relief from hunger.

Feeling full of good cheer we now climb the steep steps up to the nearest temple just a touch further south, the Sitala Temple. The bells will guide you there; there are dozens of them and most of them seem to ring most of the time. Shoes off and in we go. Ding dong ding dong. It’s quite a racket, as loud as the horns heard in the back of a rickshaw, and I head back out more or less immediately counter-clockwise against the flow. Twain reckoned it wise to pray “in the temple sacred to Sitala, goddess of smallpox.

Here, at our next stop, we are in for a nice surprise. The temple Twain described is, or rather was, “Dalbhyeswar, on the bluff overlooking the Ganges, so you must go back to the river.” It has since been washed away in one of the floods and has now become a kind of unofficial wedding ghat and if you are lucky—and the bride and groom need an astrologically auspicious day to marry—you will see a constant colorful procession of splendidly dressed young Indians go to and from the water’s edge.

We now head back past the post office to our next temple, what Twain called “the mouldering and venerable Briddhkal Temple, which is one of the oldest in Benares, the home of the Well of Long Life”. The good news—practical news rather than divine—is that I’ve learnt how to cope with the traffic in the interconnecting thoroughfare; one walks between a pair of water buffalo. Wits are needed: too close to the one behind might mean a shove in the bum, too close to one in front might mean… well, yes.

Opposite the Dandpan Temple are stalls selling temple offerings: garlands, leaves, petals and small clay urns of Ganges water. Shailesh takes us through the dense crowd shuffling and pushing for position near the sacred tank which has replaced the sacred well. We see an evolution of Twain’s ceremony. He “bent over the Well and looked. If the fates are propitious, you will see your face pictured in the water far down in the well.

...so we turn inland and there find the Well of the Earring, where as he noted, one can find “Temporary Cleansing from Sin”.

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.