The winding freeway to Rishikesh’s Neelkanth Temple Road results in Camp Brook, a luxurious tenting stick with cottages and tents, the place a gamut of non secular adventures awaits a crowd of 158 individuals. This is the venue for this yr’s Shoonya – The Festival of Nothingness. Tracy Chapman’s tune ‘Fast Car’ stops halfway when the vacation spot arrives, simply in time for the drumming session.
Anuj Aggarwal (proper), one of the founding members of Shoonya Festival, poses with facilitators and company at the competition
| Photo Credit:
Manish Suryavanshi/Shoonya
“The idea of Shoonya came out of a discussion on life between a group of friends and me. Everyone was feeling some discontentment. We wanted to create a space where people could escape into nothing and meet other people without any purpose — thus the name shoonya (which means zero). There’s no apparent narrative of wellness or healing associated with the festival. The first edition of Shoonya was held in Jibhi in 2018,” says Anuj Aggarwal, one of the founding members of Shoonya Festival. Other members embrace Manu, Saksham Ghiya, Rachna Ghiya, Aayush Sharma and Sagar Agrawal.
Guests at the exercise groud of Camp Brook
| Photo Credit:
Manish Suryavanshi/Shoonya
This yr marks the ninth version of the three-day competition that options many actions or periods, from artwork remedy to breath work meditation and sound bathtub therapeutic to aware journaling. Previously, Shoonya had been held in Jibhi, Bir, Pushkar, Kunkhet, Jaipur, Goa and Chamba. It is organised by Jaipur-based firm known as Shoonya Experiences, which is based by Anuj, Manu and Saksham. “It’s a for-profit company, but till now we have not made any profit. We do not have sponsors, but we do have in-kind partners,” Anuj explains.
Starts with one thing
The drumming session, performed as a drum circle, invitations you to beat the drum. Seated on chairs organized in three concentric circles, everybody picks a djembe every and begins drumming. Facilitator Shreya Thakur orchestrates the jam, assigning rhythmic patterns to contributors by splitting the circles in quarters and halves. Everyone blends in. The drumming intensifies. It is tea time. Some depart their devices and head to the stall close to the property’s kitchen which dishes out vegetarian meals. For the night, there are pakodas, tea and occasional. Others hold the tempo going and proceed beating the drums. They are joined by dancers and a pair of stream artistes who spin the dapostar (an eight-sided spinning fabric with a wide range of strikes). In conversations spilled over tea, the complaints of numb palms are uttered in the identical breath because the sighs of aid.
Drum circle
| Photo Credit:
Manish Suryavanshi/Shoonya
“We just want people to take a pause from their busy lives and connect with their inner selves, other people, without any judgements and in a safe place. We want them to explore many activities and take with them a thought that they could ponder on,” Anuj shares. Somewhere between existential and experiential, this non-judgemental, protected house comes at a worth that begins at ₹5,999 per particular person. There is a full-bearded, long-haired Indian man with the sartorial sensibilities of a westernised hippie, a Netherland-born, Jaipur-based, clean-shaved blonde man in Indian garments, and a grey-haired aged man who most individuals are addressing as ‘uncle’ — multi function body.
Anuj Aggarwal at Shoonya Festival
| Photo Credit:
Manish Suryavanshi/Shoonya
The music flows to Camp Brook’s rear floor that faces river Heval. A fusion of sarod, hand pan and electrical guitar, a trio named Sarod Mysticstakes inspiration from Indian classical ragas and regales the gang by means of the night.
A bit of the whole lot
With rain, clouds and solar enjoying conceal and search the second day begins on a pensive notice at the 7.30am breath-work session. The huge circle breaks into tinier circles the place contributors share their most important takeaways from the session. Some break down, others smile. The session is adopted by ice bathtub. Rhythm Malhotra, a Gurugram-based enterprise and embodiment coach, who mediates each the periods says, “For the ice bath, we keep the water’s temperature between five and seven degrees. The natural response to ice bath is fight or flight, so when one is connected to his/her body through breath work, it prepares one’s mind and body. ”
Bhushan regales the viewers with a hearth juggling present
| Photo Credit:
Manish Suryavanshi/Shoonya
She additionally talks concerning the obligatory precautions one should train earlier than taking an ice bathtub, which isn’t advisable for individuals with coronary heart situations, being pregnant or epilepsy. “We get a waiver signed by the festival organisers before conducting ice bath sessions,” she provides. Another purpose to excuse your self from the icy dip close to river Heval is hygiene, particularly if you don’t like the thought of dipping into the identical foldable bathtub that has been utilized by over 10 individuals. However, Tushti Thakur from Delhi loved the session and calls it “exhilarating”. “I could feel the negative emotions and tension wash away,” she says.
The rain pushes the martial arts session to a corridor the place a nunchaku (a extensively used martial arts weapon in Southern Chinese Kung fu, Okinawan Kobudo and karate) practitioner, known as Grey, takes the contributors by means of the apply. Those preferring delicate actions take to Bhushan’s poi-juggling session, the place he enunciates the nuances of physique motion by means of juggling. Those at the dance session stand acquainted with actions that outline stream, chaos, staccato, lyrical and stillness. For those who like training mindfulness, there are periods on journaling, artistic writing and communication.
Anything however nothing
“We choose facilitators who fit into the concept of Shoonya and who wish to experience the festival while conducting their sessions too. We do sound bath, Chinese whisper, breathwork and blindfold often, but our list of sessions change with every edition,” says Anuj, who curates the periods with Manu. “The sessions are designed in a specific flow with activities that complement each other,” he provides. He stresses on different factors which might be essential to the competition’s curation — location and other people. “We like to host the festival at a place that is close to Nature,” he says. He tells us that this version took almost seven months to curate and has witnessed most participation. “This is the first time we had over 100 participants. Nearly 30% are regular guests who have been associated with us since 2010.”
Ankit, a festival-goer, poses together with his daughter Anayaa
| Photo Credit:
Manish Suryavanshi/Shoonya
One such particular person is Mukta Basandani, a Jaipur-based mindset coach, who says that she has been related to the competition for seven years. “But this was my first time as a facilitator. In my session, I guided participants to write with intention, starting with gratitude and scripting their dreams as if they had already come true. My husband and I brought our kids (aged 11 and six years) along and they thoroughly enjoyed every activity, from nunchaku to art sessions. In today’s stressful times, I feel such experiences are essential,” she says.
Another visitor travelled all the best way from Dubai. Kanchan Gurbux, a enterprise improvement supervisor with Ernest & Young, says, “This is my second time at Shoonya. I got to know about it through my cousins. This festival allows me to cut off from my daily routine and allows me to be with myself while meeting new people and learning new experiences. I particularly loved the blindfold activity where I shared my personal feelings with an absolute stranger and that person gave me a new perspective on my feelings.”
The blindfold session at Shoonya
| Photo Credit:
Manish Suryavanshi/Shoonya
At Shoonya, with sights and sounds galore, amidst individuals identified unknown, lies a clean canvas of time and house that solely you can paint together with your ideas, experiences, feelings, consciousness and maybe by your very being. In occasions of bother, you can all the time fall on Sartre and Martin Heidegger’s musings on nothingness, delve into quantum discipline idea that means vacuum is stuffed with digital particles, or mirror on Indian philosophical traditions, like Sunyata, linked to Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. Enter the void!
The author was in Rishikesh on the invitation of Shoonya – The Festival of Nothingness .
Published – February 21, 2025 05:43 pm IST
