Festival in a Foreign Place

I had an impulse to run: soak up the humid night, the chaotic streets, the blaring traffic and pounding percussion of music that stretched the length of the city. I set out in an out-of-place outfit -- t-shirt and running shorts in clashing blues, exposing far more skin than I would normally dare, but feeling protected from judgement, insensibly, because of my face mask. I zigzagged around boxy Ambassador cabs skulking outside the hotels. I ran through stall after stall of Chinese knock-offs illuminated under naked bulbs. I took my life in my hands when I dashed through the halting traffic. I ran past a man relieving himself in a shadowy corner of the sidewalk. I ran to the water, hopping onto the tracks and through a narrow concrete maze outside a mosque. Finally, I saw the Hooghly River, framed by strings of blue neon tacked along the promenade. Further down lorries packed with men sleek with sweat and larger-than-life pandals to Durga Puja drove down to the ghats. The men untied the rope, dozens of hands shifting the clay figure onto the clotted shores. They kicked off plastic flip-flops, rolled up their pants and heaved the goddess into the murky water for a sacred bath.