That night, the family ate together on banana leaves. His cousin, a doctor in London, was on a video call, watching them eat kheer from ten thousand kilometers away. "I miss the taste of smoke," she said, crying softly. "The smoke from the havan (fire sacrifice). They don't have that smell here."
As dawn broke, the aarti began. Conch shells blew. A young priest, who had a bicep tattoo of a pixelated Lord Shiva, swung a lamp of fire. The fire traced a circle in the dark—no beginning, no end.
The old ghat steps of Varanasi were slick with the overnight mist and the residue of a thousand offerings. Aarav, a 28-year-old software engineer from Bangalore, sat on the thirteenth step from the top—his usual spot. He had come home to his ancestral city for the Pitru Paksha , the fortnight to honor his father who had passed two years ago.
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