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The Bead Salesman
text & photo by Lani Wright
Excerpts:
I went to the city of Varanasi in the east of India on vacation. Although it was November, I found the heat and light overwhelming. By noon, dung and sewage had reached the boiling point, making them steam into the air where the smell permeated everything.
All day, I fended off kids selling postcards and sandalwood, shook my head no to the Hindu priests who cajoled me to come and worship by the river with them, no to the flower vendors, to the tea servers, to the small boy who leaned on his crudely carved crutch, one leg missing below the knee, with his palm outstretched in the universal gesture of the beggar. I couldn’t figure out what they wanted from me. If I didn’t give them money, they were angry. If I gave them money, they still seemed angry.
I was heading back to my guesthouse for a cold shower and a nap when a man stepped into my path and held up strings of beads neatly separated along the side of his hand. They swung from side to side and then stopped. “No thanks,” I said . . .
