Widows of Vrindavan celebrate raksha bandhan with Modi rakhis on Sunday. Pic/PTI

A visit to Varanasi last week witnessed a continuing paradox. Though it has been Prime Minister Narendra Modi's parliamentary constituency for over three years, it is still an infrastructure crumble. It was raining when I reached - parts of this never-ending small-town were flooded a day earlier, and it rained on schedule the three days I was there - and as usual in India, rain doesn't clean a place so much as spread its filth and poverty. The roads were unmotorable. A huge bypass being built from the airport was still being built. Roads in the old paanchkos were all dug up to lay underground electric cables, provoking the stale joke, "Upar khuda, neeche khodai" (God above, digging below). Only the e-rickshaws Modi introduced provided cheer - an easy, convenient and eco-friendly mode of navigating the narrow roads and narrower flagstone lanes - but there is still enveloping chaos provided by cycle-carts, hand-pulled carts, bicycles, motorcycles, Toyota Innovas, pedestrians and the ubiquitous ambling buffalo. "Unity in diversity" is all you can charitably say about Indian roads. "If this is the PM's constituency, just think how it is in non-VIP constituencies," a friend said.