Crime and Karma in Varanasi

Akshay uses his camera to understand the paradox that twenty-first century Varanasi is –

Dazed from the heat, groggy from my seventeen hour journey on the train, I look across the street to a crowded market in the direction of a row of cycle rickshaws. I stood there hunched under the weight of my backpack, bathing in sweat, dwarfed by a giant billboard of Amitabh Bachchan that couldn’t help making me smile. It read “Uttar Pradesh mein dum hai, kyonki yahan jurm kam hai. (UP is strong because there’s less crime here).”