Heres what you may anticipate at Shoonya The Festival of Nothingness

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.

“The concept of Shoonya got here out of a dialogue on life between a gaggle of mates and me. Everyone was feeling some discontentment. We wished to create an area the place individuals might escape into nothing and meet different individuals with none goal — thus the title shoonya (which implies zero). There’s no obvious narrative of wellness or therapeutic related to the competition. The first version of Shoonya was held in Jibhi in 2018,” says Anuj Aggarwal, one of many founding members of Shoonya Festival. Other members embrace Manu, Saksham Ghiya, Rachna Ghiya, Aayush Sharma and Sagar Agrawal.

This yr marks the ninth version of the three-day competition that options many actions or classes, 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 referred to as Shoonya Experiences, which is based by Anuj, Manu and Saksham. “It’s a for-profit firm, however until now we’ve got not made any revenue. We wouldn’t have sponsors, however we do have in-kind companions,” 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 members 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 maintain the tempo going and proceed beating the drums. They are joined by dancers and a few stream artistes who spin the dapostar (an eight-sided spinning fabric with a wide variety of strikes). In conversations spilled over tea, the complaints of numb palms are uttered in the identical breath because the sighs of reduction.

“We simply need individuals to take a pause from their busy lives and join with their internal selves, different individuals, with none judgements and in a protected place. We need them to discover many actions and take with them a thought that they might ponder on,” Anuj shares. Somewhere between existential and experiential, this non-judgemental, protected house comes at a value 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.

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 group via the night.

A little bit of all the things

With rain, clouds and solar taking part in disguise and search the second day begins on a pensive notice on the 7.30am breath-work session. The large circle breaks into tinier circles the place members share their foremost 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 classes says, “For the ice bathtub, we maintain the water’s temperature between 5 and 7 levels. The pure response to ice bathtub is combat or flight, so when one is linked to his/her physique via breath work, it prepares one’s thoughts and physique. ”

She additionally talks in regards to the obligatory precautions one should train earlier than taking an ice bathtub, which isn’t really helpful for individuals with coronary heart situations, being pregnant or epilepsy. “We get a waiver signed by the competition organisers earlier than conducting ice bathtub classes,” she provides. Another cause 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 might really feel the unfavorable feelings and rigidity 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, referred to as Grey, takes the members via the observe. Those preferring refined actions take to Bhushan’s poi-juggling session, the place he enunciates the nuances of physique motion via juggling. Those on the dance session stand acquainted with actions that outline stream, chaos, staccato, lyrical and stillness. For those who like working towards mindfulness, there are classes on journaling, artistic writing and communication.

Anything however nothing

“We select facilitators who match into the idea of Shoonya and who want to expertise the competition whereas conducting their classes too. We do sound bathtub, Chinese whisper, breathwork and blindfold usually, however our checklist of classes change with each version,” says Anuj, who curates the classes with Manu. “The classes are designed in a particular stream with actions that complement one another,” he provides. He stresses on different factors which might be essential to the competition’s curation — location and folks. “We prefer to host the competition at a spot that’s near Nature,” he says. He tells us that this version took practically seven months to curate and has witnessed most participation. “This is the primary time we had over 100 members. Nearly 30% are common company who’ve been related to us since 2010.”

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 members to put in writing with intention, beginning with gratitude and scripting their desires as if that they had already come true. My husband and I introduced our youngsters (aged 11 and 6 years) alongside and so they totally loved each exercise, from nunchaku to artwork classes. In right now’s annoying instances, I really feel such experiences are important,” 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 acquired to find out about it via my cousins. This competition permits me to chop off from my each day routine and permits me to be with myself whereas assembly new individuals and studying new experiences. I notably beloved the blindfold exercise the place I shared my private emotions with an absolute stranger and that particular person gave me a brand new perspective on my emotions.”

At Shoonya, with sights and sounds galore, amidst individuals recognized unknown, lies a clean canvas of time and house that solely you may paint together with your ideas, experiences, feelings, consciousness and maybe by your very being. In instances of hassle, you may at all times fall on Sartre and Martin Heidegger’s musings on nothingness, delve into quantum subject concept that means vacuum is full of 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 .