I'm sitting, lounging rather, in my hammock. My hammock is green and tan, and quite large. The folds of it's synthetic silk envelope it's user like a cocoon envelopes a juvenile butterfly. My hammock is the most comfortable piece of furniture (?) I have ever reclined in.
The only clothing I have on is a traditional Indian Longi. A very light cotton 7 foot by 4 foot piece of white cloth that is worn wrapped around the waist like a long man-skirt. The longi is very comfortable, especially on hot Indian days, and is therefore well suited for the Indian environment. It's design is also conducive to the use of squat-toilets. No more details on that, except that squatting makes far more sense than traditional western bodily waste disposal systems.
I digress.
My hammock is hung between a concrete pillar on one side, and on the other is attached to two sketchy hooks drilled into the concrete wall of the rundown Muna Guest House. On the wall next to my hammock's anchor is a mural of the Hindu deity Saraswati. The elegant Goddess is equipped with a sitar and is seated on a white lotus flower accompanied by a swan and peacock. The wall the mural is painted on makes one side of a three sided terrace, with one face open to the mighty Ganga (Ganges) river which lazily flows some eleven stories below. In my nest I'm positioned so that I look out over the giant body of water across to it's eastern shore. The eastern riverside is a flood plain that's inundated regularly enough to keep encroaching development at bay. Thus the ancient, maze-like city of Varanasi (a.k.a. Banaras, Kashi, etc. etc. etc.) is reflected in the Ganga and it's crowded ghats are contrasted on the opposite river bank by kilometers of empty plains of gray sand.
The only movement in the plains now is a horseman riding north, racing the Ganga down it's banks, leaving only a trail of dust in the sky.
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