India’s nationwide lockdown starting on March 24, 2020, has been extended until May 3 and is now the largest curfew in the world to fight the spread of the deadly coronavirus that causes Covid-19. As a result, the holy city of Varanasi is unusually empty and quiet. Normally the city cremates up to 300 bodies a day from all around the country, but now fewer than 40 funerals are done, all for local people. The usual teeming crowds of mourners, pilgrims and tourists in India’s “spiritual capital”…