At Tulsi Ghat, on the fourth day of the bright half of Kartik, a boy playing Krishna leaps from a kadamba branch planted at the water's edge into the Ganga, climbs onto an effigy of the serpent Kaliya, and strikes the flute-playing pose as the serpent is carried in a circle before the crowd. The enactment lasts minutes; the crowd waits hours.
The leela is said to have been started by Tulsidas in the sixteenth century, at the ghat where he lived and which now bears his name. The audience watches from the steps and from boats packed gunwale to gunwale across the river in front.
It is short, specific and much loved locally — more a neighbourhood occasion than a tourist event. Arrive early for a place on the ghat.
