I didn’t go to Banaras to “find myself.” Honestly, I just wanted a break from my screen, from the noise, from everything feeling urgent all the time. Volunteering with Local Lok felt like the right kind of reset. What I didn’t expect was how deeply the city would settle into me. Banaras moves at its own rhythm. It’s not slow exactly but steady. Purposeful. The mornings start with temple bells and sadhus walking past the ghats, the air thick with incense and history, crowded markets buzzing with a frenzy of shoppers. And somehow, even in all that movement, there is stillness.
My days as a volunteer were simple, helping out with content creation, learning from locals, just being part of everyday life. But that simplicity? It shifted something in me. I wasn’t trying to keep up or be productive every single second. I was just present in the moment. And that felt new.
One of my favourite moments was spending an afternoon with a group of women outside a small temple, where they were preparing offerings for an upcoming ritual. I had come to photograph the process, the hands at work, the quiet rituals, the textures of faith but somewhere along the way, I put the camera down. They invited me to sit, offered me prasad, laughed when I tried to join the conversation. I didn’t catch every word but I didn’t need to. That moment reminded me that presence often matters more than the picture.
Banaras isn’t an easy city to describe. It has contradictions stacked on contradictions, peaceful and chaotic, sacred and playful, crumbling and eternal. But it makes space for you, if you let it. It doesn’t ask you to be anything. It just asks you to be there.
By the time I left, I felt lighter. Not in the cliché, “I went on a soul-searching trip” kind of way, but in a way that felt honest. Like I’d been carrying a weight I didn’t even notice until it quietly let go. There was a calmness that settled in, the kind that doesn’t come from doing less but from being more present.
Volunteering with Local Lok gave me the kind of clarity that only comes when you’re not really looking for it. Just being immersed in the rhythm of local life, helping, listening & observing was more grounding than any retreat or reset I’ve tried before. I think everyone deserves to experience that kind of stillness, even just once. Banaras gave me mine.
~ Aayushi Vaidya.