I was twenty-eight when I moved into the little one-room flat in Varanasi.
No family, no close friends in the city. I had taken a librarian job at a local school—quiet, steady work—but after the noise of growing up in a joint household in Kolkata, the silence clung to me like a damp shawl.
At night, I would make my simple dal and sit by the small window, hoping for a breeze. The temple bell from down the gully would ring at dusk, a sound that touched something in me I didn’t know was aching.
The loneliness didn’t come all at once. It settled slowly. Like dust. Cooking for one. Eating alone. The echo of my footsteps on the stairs. No one calling my name.
I started forgetting who I used to be.
One evening, when the loneliness pressed too hard, I wandered out. The steps to the Ganga—our sacred river—were nearby. I had gone there as a tourist once. But that night I wasn’t a visitor. I was just someone needing to feel something holy.
I bought a small diya—a tiny oil lamp—from an old woman sitting by the temple entrance. She didn’t speak, just handed it over, and lit the wick carefully. Her fingers trembled. But they were steady with purpose.
I walked to the water’s edge. The city was humming behind me, but the river was slow and quiet. I knelt, whispered a prayer—no fancy Sanskrit, just a raw “Please be near, Bhagavan.”
I placed the diya in the water. The flame bobbed gently, moving away but still glowing.
And something strange happened. Or maybe not strange, just quiet.
I remembered a verse from the Bhagavad Gita, which I had memorized years ago in school. Chapter 9, Verse 22: “To those who are constantly devoted and who worship Me with love, I give what they lack and preserve what they have.”
I whispered it. Again and again. That promise.
In that moment, kneeling by the Ganga, I didn’t feel less lonely. I still had no weekend plans, no one to call. But something softened.
I wasn’t alone in the way I had thought.
I remembered how Arjuna, in the Mahabharata, stood on the battlefield with confusion and fear. But Krishna—his charioteer, his guide—never left his side.
The forest might be quiet, but that doesn’t mean it’s empty.
Over the next weeks, I began to see differently. When the fruit vendor wrapped my guavas with extra care. When a child gave me half her flower garland outside the temple. When the old woman by the steps nodded at me like we had always known each other.
A verse from the Chandogya Upanishad came to mind: “Tat tvam asi”—You are that. A reminder that the divine isn’t distant. It sits quietly in every soul, even your own.
Loneliness still comes, sometimes. But now, I set the diya down each dusk, not because I am waiting for someone to fill the room—but because I know the sacred is already near.
I was twenty-eight when I moved into the little one-room flat in Varanasi.
No family, no close friends in the city. I had taken a librarian job at a local school—quiet, steady work—but after the noise of growing up in a joint household in Kolkata, the silence clung to me like a damp shawl.
At night, I would make my simple dal and sit by the small window, hoping for a breeze. The temple bell from down the gully would ring at dusk, a sound that touched something in me I didn’t know was aching.
The loneliness didn’t come all at once. It settled slowly. Like dust. Cooking for one. Eating alone. The echo of my footsteps on the stairs. No one calling my name.
I started forgetting who I used to be.
One evening, when the loneliness pressed too hard, I wandered out. The steps to the Ganga—our sacred river—were nearby. I had gone there as a tourist once. But that night I wasn’t a visitor. I was just someone needing to feel something holy.
I bought a small diya—a tiny oil lamp—from an old woman sitting by the temple entrance. She didn’t speak, just handed it over, and lit the wick carefully. Her fingers trembled. But they were steady with purpose.
I walked to the water’s edge. The city was humming behind me, but the river was slow and quiet. I knelt, whispered a prayer—no fancy Sanskrit, just a raw “Please be near, Bhagavan.”
I placed the diya in the water. The flame bobbed gently, moving away but still glowing.
And something strange happened. Or maybe not strange, just quiet.
I remembered a verse from the Bhagavad Gita, which I had memorized years ago in school. Chapter 9, Verse 22: “To those who are constantly devoted and who worship Me with love, I give what they lack and preserve what they have.”
I whispered it. Again and again. That promise.
In that moment, kneeling by the Ganga, I didn’t feel less lonely. I still had no weekend plans, no one to call. But something softened.
I wasn’t alone in the way I had thought.
I remembered how Arjuna, in the Mahabharata, stood on the battlefield with confusion and fear. But Krishna—his charioteer, his guide—never left his side.
The forest might be quiet, but that doesn’t mean it’s empty.
Over the next weeks, I began to see differently. When the fruit vendor wrapped my guavas with extra care. When a child gave me half her flower garland outside the temple. When the old woman by the steps nodded at me like we had always known each other.
A verse from the Chandogya Upanishad came to mind: “Tat tvam asi”—You are that. A reminder that the divine isn’t distant. It sits quietly in every soul, even your own.
Loneliness still comes, sometimes. But now, I set the diya down each dusk, not because I am waiting for someone to fill the room—but because I know the sacred is already near.
