Short Story by Biswajit Chatterjee: ‘But this peculiarly-formed lad is an altogether different animal when he is in water. With his unfamiliar yet uncanny ability, he learns to handle the waves, the deadly undercurrents, the movement of the swells, the whirlpools.’

For centuries, Varanasi has welcomed all visitors into the same all-encompassing embrace. With aggressive forces of politics and religion threatening to segregate his hometown, Karan Madhok argues for the need to preserve the city’s true harmonious spirit.

Photo Essay: Lost without direction, and happy to keep moving—Varanasi’s labyrinthine old gullies and the Ganga riverside provide the glimpse of a world without time, where the ancient world collapses into the present. By Karan Madhok