The train, a lumbering iron beast of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, rattled and clanked, its worn wooden carriages groaning with the weight of its journey.
Smoke billowed from its stack, painting the sky with streaks of soot.
Varun, after disembarking at Nagpur, transferred to the Bengal Nagpur Railway, a network that stretched eastward, carrying him closer to his somber destination.
The journey was a slow, arduous crawl across the vast expanse of India, a world of steam and steel, of rhythmic chugging and the mournful wail of the whistle.
Varanasi erupted around him, a city of vibrant chaos, a place where life and death danced in a macabre ballet.
The air thrummed with the chants of priests, the clang of temple bells, and the ever-present scent of burning pyres.
The Ganges, a wide, swirling ribbon of sacred water, flowed through the city's heart, its banks lined with ancient ghats, each a stage for the final act of human existence.
The city pulsed with a strange, unsettling energy, a place where the sacred and the profane intertwined.
He found a small, unassuming inn, a sanctuary from the city's frenetic energy. Exhaustion, the cumulative fatigue of days spent on rattling trains, settled heavily upon him.
He slept, a deep, dreamless slumber, seeking a brief respite from the relentless grief that gnawed at his soul.
As the sun began its descent, painting the sky in hues of orange and crimson, Varun carried the two urns, each containing the ashes of his lost loved ones, to the Manikarnika Ghat.
The air was thick with the smoke of funeral pyres, the chants of mourners a somber chorus. He stood at the edge of the ghat, his face a mask of grief, and prayed to Lord Shiva, seeking moksha, liberation, for the departed souls.
Then, he walked into the Ganges, the sacred water rising around him, inch by inch, until it reached his abdomen.
He chanted ancient mantras, his voice a low, mournful drone, and slowly, reverently, released the ashes from the urns.
The gray dust swirled and dissolved into the river's current, carried away on its eternal journey.
He dropped the now empty urns, letting them sink into the holy river.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the ghat, Varun stood in the water, his gaze fixed on the fading light.
He vowed, his voice a low, guttural growl, that he would not lose anyone else.
He, who had already lost his parents to the relentless march of time, and his wife and child to the brutal hands of men, would become an impenetrable shield, a guardian against the forces that sought to destroy.
He looked up, his eyes searching the darkening sky, and hoped that Lord Vishwanath, the lord of the universe, would grant him strength.