A cheeky essay

Who are we here? Our Varanasi hosts said we are not dignitaries as may have been suggested. "You are gods," he said. "You are gods when you are in our country!" he said, spitting blood red tobacco to a corner. This bit, this five of us being carted around, are we a rock band? We have a guitar, thanks to Karisa. I see the locals saying, "I knew the Spice Girls reorganized, but what happened to that one? She's aged so!" Karisa, she's the front person here. It's her curls they like. "You are looking beautiful today," passers by say. But she wonders, what's next? What do they mean. Is there something attached? We travel. We're scooped and moved and fed and told to rest and scooped and moved and toured and introduced and fed and fed and fed and moved and fed and told to rest, for we will move again. Four days, two days, four days three days. We are the American Circus come with a tent of ideals and maybe some expectations. But there's nothing to tell us from here to there what will take place in those three center rings. Are we the talent? The freaks? The laborers? The beasts? The experience, the sights, the breathing and knowing, the coming to know people with real skin and real eyes. Do these people see us the way we see them? Do they know the flying trapeze acts we parlay in our minds? When we are adorned -- fresh fruits, flowers and pearls -- are we being decorated in dye and sash like the holy cow, thereafter meant to be let alone, wandering and revered? This much: Our dreams are pleasant and safe, our mornings are bells and prayers, our days sunshine and architecture, our nights families and spices. And again the dreams. Sometimes the cow, sometimes the clown.