The camera reached Manikarnika Ghat one hazy June morning, 2018. Steps worn to pits, stained with ash, down to grey-green water. Boats stacked with firewood. A man holds a golden shroud; orange, gold cloths; marigolds in the soot. At the center, a pyre with orange flames; a water buffalo in the wall's shadow.

Manikarnika means “jewel of the ear.” Varanasi's most sacred burning ghat. A goddess burned here, they say; her earring fell; the family that took it was cursed to keep the fire. The Doms guard it; tradition says it never goes out. Its best-known keeper, Saranga Devi, the Dom queen, took the fire when her husband died.

The steps are many because the river rises twelve meters in the monsoon. To die here is to leave the wheel. This month the river proved it: the ghat went under, the fires moved to the rooftops, lit from the one flame.

02:00 in Varanasi; the fires are burning. The camera saw the morning version: one pyre. The night adds scale: in the dark you can't count the fires; the river goes black, the smoke hides the stars, and the ghat goes on as it has since before the camera, city, legend. I came to know the human night. This is where the night is the lesser fire.