The last 10 days were dark. Got ill again, four days of fever, with a heavy cough, the heaviest since the first COVID. Everything turned annoying beyond the edge during this sickness: the smell of dog shit on the streets, the smell of mice, the smell of dung, the smell of rotten shit, heavy smell of traffic fumes (from those poisonous super noisy Royal Enfields) and floating heavy dust on the streets, people spitting gutka 🤢, people talking with fucking gutka in their mouths 🤢🤢, and honking, honking, honking - motorcycles rushing in narrow lanes with drivers proud to stop their vehicles at the very last moment before breaking each of the 26 bones of your foot, like, look, I am a pro! 😡
I fully recovered only today, and at the same time, summer weather - finally! - came.
I was literally going crazy in these 10 days, and then everything returned to normal today, like my mind got fixed, so I went out for a photo walk. Yes, some smells, yes, traffic, but too many good things on the streets to focus on. Sharing today's shots.
A cycle rickshaw, loved the light and the background, approached unseen to take this image on the go.
Strangely, this transport mode still exists as an option in Varanasi. And you can even witness a crush in some of them:
Entering a Muslim area:
Goats aren't Muslims, but those guys on the street who preferred Arab garments to Indian clothes are.
Obviously, a house had fallen apart and had been eventually occupied by goats who always miss the mountains, no matter where they live. Of course, they sleep at home, but the daytime promenade is here - I saw them many times on this ruin.
Let's follow the goats to see where they will lead us...
A mosque!
The boy (standing inside) quickly reported me to an old man who appeared at the door, looking at me with discontent, as if I interrupted planning the takeover of the world by the Arab Caliphate. I nodded and quickly left.
This girl got impressed with my camera and asked me - through her mom - if I could photograph her. Her mom and two other ladies walked away to be at a safe distance from the sin of being photographed. I took a couple of pictures and told the girl, they were good, and she humbly smiled at me, obviously feeling content that she was a good model. She wanted to see the images - I could read it in her eyes - but the ladies were in hurry.
A man went out to feed "an electrician" 😀 I liked two of them being in the frame.
Indians love drinking black tea with milk and spices - sitting in a group with chai is quite a common spectacle. I liked these men, and I asked their consent. They didn't mind.
They had wraparound garments instead of trousers - could be they were from the South but... You never know for sure.
After leaving the avenue with the goats, I was meandering along the lanes, having no idea where exactly I was. GPS doesn't work well in this stone maze so no sense to spend time for trying to understand where you are on the map. Moreover, it's fun to lose the mental connection to Google.Maps. But at some point, I suddenly found myself by the river, and everything fell into place:
I shortly walked along the river, but soon left, having realized I had spent too much time in this area.
An archway from the river back to the lanes.
A lane heavily covered with dung... A cowshed right in the stone jungle:
The man loved that I was taking images of cows and invited me to photograph him with his favorite Daisy.
Somewhere here a boy, passing by me, jokingly poked my stomach with his finger. I answered with a joke - screamed "in pain" and bent over... The boy and another passerby loved it. 😀 That was such a cool, light moment.
An artifact I liked:
Can't help feeling it's a space helmet, not without a story behind...
India is super inspirational, but it can also drain your energy. It's like magic mushrooms - fascinating, but it easily turns into a bad trip if you lose control of your emotions.
I really hope I'll be active in the coming days as this is my last 3 weeks here and I want to make the most of them. Still, there’s a chance my flight from Delhi to Tbilisi could be cancelled if a war in Iran starts. Let’s see.
The photos were taken with a Nikkor 24mm f/1.8G on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 in February 25, 2026, in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India