Varanasi is presented as the likely destination of Khaled Ansari and the home of Idriss, the elderly teacher who shaped Abdel Khader Khan’s thought. Though the narrative does not show the city itself, it gives Varanasi a decisive role as the place where Karla intends to begin searching for Khaled and where the history behind Abdel Khader Khan’s teachings may be traced.

Idriss and Abdel Khader Khan’s Teachings

Karla tells Lin that Idriss still teaches in Varanasi, though he is very old. She connects the city to her own first meeting with Idriss: after a breakdown on a plane bound for Singapore, she encountered Abdel Khader Khan, who was on the same flight, and was taken to a cave with a giant Buddha statue and the teacher. Her account makes Varanasi part of the personal history behind Abdel Khader Khan’s otherwise little-disclosed spiritual education.

According to Karla, Idriss taught Abdel Khader Khan what he knew of Resolution theory, the name Abdel Khader Khan gave to his philosophy of a universe moving toward complexity. Lin recognizes the idea from his long conversations with Abdel Khader Khan, but is surprised that the teacher’s name had never come up. Karla says Abdel Khader Khan loved Idriss like a father, called him the teacher of all teachers, and had wanted to retire near Varanasi with him.

Varanasi as the Starting Point of a Search

Karla suspects Khaled is heading to Varanasi to meet Idriss. She recalls that Khaled had been fascinated by the old teacher and repeatedly asked her about him, although she does not know why he never went to see him earlier. She leaves open the possibility that Khaled has already arrived, making her identification of the city a reasoned lead rather than confirmed knowledge.

Karla plans to go to Varanasi the next day and begin looking for Khaled there. The city’s significance is therefore both practical and retrospective: it offers a concrete direction in the search while bringing into view a formative bond and body of teaching that Abdel Khader Khan had kept largely outside his conversations with Lin.