Piers Moore Ede first fell in love with Varanasi when he passed through it on his way to Nepal. In the decade that followed, it continued to exert its pull on him and so he returned there to live - to discover what it is that makes the spiritual capital of India so unique. In this intoxicating city, where funeral pyres smoulder beside the river in which thousands of pilgrims bathe, and holiness and corruption walk side by side, Piers discovers a remarkable interplay between death and life, light and dark.