No Man’s Land

When summer comes to Varanasi,
the Ganga reveals a secret - a vast stretch of silt that emerges
like a breath held too long. This No Man's Land belongs
neither to the city nor its people, but to the river's quiet rhythm.
Pilgrims kneel where fish swam months before;
children's footprints dissolve like promises in the damp earth.
The crowded ghats, just across the water,
feel suddenly distant.
Here, there is only sky, silt, and the rare gift of space
- to pray, to play, to simply exist without elbows or expectations.

The river gives this ground reluctantly,
knowing the monsoon will reclaim it. Yet in its brief existence,
No Man's Land becomes everything to everyone.
It is both playground and temple, workplace and refuge.
The silt remembers nothing - not yesterday's prayers,
not tomorrow's flood - and this is its mercy.
Like all sacred things,it appears when most needed,
then disappears before we think to thank it.
The Ganga keeps no souvenirs, but those who walk this temporary
shore carry its memory in the dust between their toes.

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