India, March 28 -- I began writing this piece not at a desk, but in the afterglow of a conversation that refused to end.

It was close to four in the morning in Varanasi. The city had fallen into a deceptive quiet. A few stray sounds lingered. Distant footsteps. A passing vehicle. The occasional bark of a dog. Inside, however, time had loosened its grip. Words continued to move, unhurried, circling back, opening into other thoughts. There are conversations one does not conclude. One only carries them across cities.

This essay emerges from that condition of carrying.

I write this not merely as a recollection of a visit, nor as a festival note, but as an attempt to understand how cities endure in language. In an age where literature festi...