I was giving Nandan a tour of Wikipedia and one of the entries he wandered to was for Baba Keenaram Sthal. I did not recognize the name of either the place or the founder so Nandan started telling me their history.
Later that evening I went for a walk and ran into both Attila and Dora with Attila’s parents who were visiting, then into Rajan. It struck me as strange that I should be ought and meet everyone I know, but then I thought twice about how this must happen because of course everyone in the entire neighborhood goes out every evening and everyone knows everyone here and everyone goes to the same public places. I tagged along with Rajan to some temple for some puja, and he started telling me about them. When we got to the temple I realized that this was a temple that I knew as the first one to which Nandan ever took me. We arrived just as the aarti was beginning and Rajan explained much of what was happening, and as the rituals were site-specific explanations were necessary to understand. It seems like every temple here has multiple aspects which make it unique, and that temple visitors necessarily must learn about these things to get the most from their worship.
This particular temple did things with ghost interaction so there were symbols of death and blood and taboo everywhere. I remarked that the gruesome Ganesh statue was holding a skull and weapons, and Rajan explained to me the names of the aspects of gods and various lifestyles and rituals associated with the worship of each aspect. He then pointed out that this Ganesh was one of the special 56 Ganesh temples of Benares which Nandan and I had made plans to photograph and document, so this was a welcome surprise.
After the aarti I walked home with Rajan but did not go inside because I wanted some chana from Assi Ghat. I got it and about a minute later I met these two boys and we started talking. We started making out on the ghats which was cool because it was dark but still it was out in the open. One boy got a call and had to go but the boy who stayed was maximum cute anyway and he wanted us both to get more naked then and there. I felt kind of weird because there were poor starving people ostensibly unconscious and dying around us but he said that this was the place to be. Some Indian guys came to check out what we were doing and we went to another ghat before we decided it was stupid out there and that we should go to my place. Those Indian guys started saying mean things to us about being gay which was rude but on the other hand if he had just told us to go someplace else then I suppose that would have been appropriate.
Later after boy-o left I told Nandan about that temple and he asked me if I knew the name of it. When I told him no he told me it was the same place for which we edited the Wikipedia article and which he had been discussing with me. It tripped me out to connect that I had been to this place as my first real temple experience, then Nandan had been telling me about his work with this society for years and I had not put it together, then he mentioned them again that night and then Rajan took me to them and I just was not understanding the connection until then.