Because he’s won a large sum of money at cards, Mayi suggests to his best friend, Nad, that they head for the city to pick up two women.
They leave Benares, a tiny village sweltering in Mauritius’s mugginess, and hitch a ride with an old man in his pickup truck to Port-Louis. Here they find two prostitutes, get them to climb on board, light up cigarettes, and exchange a few words, hopes, and dreams while heading back for Benares, all the while pretending they’re going nowhere in particular. They’re a strange crew on a strange adventure where the howls of dogs wandering beside the road ripple through the night peopled by ghosts. In the pickup that takes them back to their village in the south, they evoke the other Benares, the sacred city in India where Hindus go to die to gain their place in paradise.