On a smoggy, slightly chilly November evening in Delhi, Kunzum Books in Jor Bagh feels like a pocket of warmth against the city’s greying air. Outside, the streets hum with the chaos of winter traffic, but inside, time seems to slow. Rows of black-and-white chairs face a wall painted with portraits of writers, from Rushdie to Woolf, their faces rendered mid-thought. The air carries a faint mix of lavender and jasmine.
This is Sahara, a new initiative by Niyogi Books, in collaboration with Solh Wellness and Kunzum Books, a monthly gathering that explores stories of healing, listening, and shared experience through women’s voices. “It’s not a panel or lecture,” says Trisha De Niyogi, COO and director of Niyogi Books, as she welcomes the audience. “It’s a safe and intimate space…where we can show up as we are. To share and listen, together.”
Women from all walks of life have gathered, students with canvas totes, corporate professionals, writers, and counsellors, some clutching notebooks, others holding cups of tea. There’s a quiet hum of familiarity, even among strangers. A table near the entrance offers chips, biscuits, and steaming chai. On one side stands a Solh Wellness digital kiosk inviting guests to take a ‘stress scan’, a curious fusion of technology and tenderness. But once everyone settles, the chatter fades, and the evening’s true ritual begins.
At the heart of Sahara lies bibliotherapy, the practice of healing through reading and reflection. Each month, an editor or writer reads a chapter or story from a book that explores emotional complexity, followed by a conversation about what it evokes in those listening.
“Books can hold you when you’re breaking,” says Niyogi, as she introduces the session. “They can give language to what you’ve never said out loud.”
That particular evening’s reading is from Bandaged Moments, Niyogi Books’ new anthology of women’s stories on mental health, edited by Nishi Pulugurtha and Nabanita Sengupta. The book gathers diverse voices, each confronting the quiet struggles of the mind. Grief, loneliness, memory, and resilience. Pulugurtha reads from a story about a woman navigating a difficult marriage and the unspoken strain of family expectations. Her voice is steady, but the room shifts with each line. When she finishes, Niyogi invites the audience to respond.
For a few moments, there is silence. Not the uncomfortable kind, but one that follows recognition. Then a woman in the second row says softly, “It’s so relatable.” Another shares a personal memory, an echo of the protagonist’s frustration. A third says, “The language is so vivid. It lets you stand in her shoes.”
What begins as a reading soon becomes an act of collective recognition. People aren’t analysing; they are identifying, relating, remembering. The discussion flows from literature to lived experience. As per the editors, Bandaged Moments isn’t an easy book to put together. “It’s a niche subject, women authors writing about mental health,” says Sengupta. “We had to look for voices that spoke with honesty and restraint.”
They even unearth a short story written in 1932, made available only because the author’s granddaughter translated and shared it. “Even after nearly a century,” Pulugurtha says, “the emotions felt as current as ever.”
The warmth of the room, the glow of soft light on bookshelves, the scent of masala tea, the unguarded sharing, give the evening the intimacy of a living-room conversation. As the evening winds down, Niyogi reflects on what Sahara might grow into. “Delhi is where it begins,” she says, “but we hope to take Sahara to Kolkata next year.”
A softer language
In a culture where wellness often leans toward productivity, mindfulness apps, yoga challenges, and self-optimisation, Sahara’s premise feels quietly subversive. Here, healing isn’t measured in milestones but in moments of connection.
Across India, small, community-led initiatives like this are reimagining the language of mental health. They don’t offer advice or diagnoses. Instead, they offer presence. That middle ground between silence and therapy is also where Belong, a mental health collective founded by Harsheen Kaur Vohra, has carved its identity. Over the past few years, she has hosted more than 500 support groups, bringing together thousands of participants, both online and in person.
“Belong started from a very real place,” she says. “From sitting in hundreds of rooms, listening to people talk about things they’d never said out loud before. People just want somewhere to be real. A room where you can say, ‘This is what I’m feeling,’ and not worry you’ve broken the mood by saying it out loud.”
In a country where conversations about mental health often oscillate between therapy on one end and silence on the other, Belong aims to occupy the “in-between”, the ordinary, human space where people can simply talk. “It’s simple, really,” says Vohra. “When people feel safe enough to show up as they are, connection takes care of the rest.”
Harsheen describes the process of building Belong as “swimming against three tides— stigma, silence, and structure.”
“Support groups are still new here. People often think seeking support means you’re weak or assume it’s only for those in crisis,” she explains. “So we’ve had to reframe it, make it more relatable, more human, and definitely more inviting.”
Accessibility, too, is key. “Emotional support shouldn’t be a privilege,” she says. To that end, Belong keeps its circles affordable, partners with institutions, and consciously designs inclusive space, both digital and physical.
Her facilitators, she notes, also practise reflection and self-care. “You can’t build belonging if you don’t live it yourself.”
What emerges from these gatherings is something more profound than conversation, it’s continuity. Participants check in on each other long after sessions end. Some even create smaller support groups within their own circles.
The emotional texture varies depending on the format. “In-person groups have a certain texture,” says Vohra. “You can feel the energy shift in the room—the shared silences, the comfort in someone’s nod, a doodle passed across the table to lighten the mood.”
Online, she says, the connection takes on a different quality. “People join from their bedrooms, offices, even parked cars, from different cities and countries. The digital space offers gentle anonymity, a safer first step for many.”
But both formats, she insists, hold equal value. “Maybe digital spaces make belonging possible for those still learning to reach out.”
A cultural shift
If Sahara and Belong represent two facets of this movement—one literary, the other therapeutic—together, they reveal a broader transformation underway in urban India.
“A few years ago, conversations about mental health were still limited or even uncomfortable, especially for men,” says Vohra. “Now, we see people across genders showing up. Gen Z and millennials are moving away from quick-fix wellness trends toward honest, meaningful conversations about grief, burnout, loneliness, and everything that comes with being human.”
She pauses. “More and more people are realising that we’re not alone in being scared of being alone. Not alone in losing people we love, in starting where it hurts, or in not knowing why we can’t let go. Somewhere between dropping the brave face and putting words to what we struggle with, we start to feel a little less alone.” That belief, that connection itself can be curative, underpins much of India’s new community wellness landscape.
Circles of care
In Lucknow, Suramya Life Foundation is taking that philosophy to the margins, working to make mental health conversations more inclusive.
Founded by Anshoo Srivastava, a clinical hypnotherapist and counsellor, the NGO focuses on the emotional and mental well-being of the LGBTQIA+ community. “Suramya Life Foundation is a Lucknow-based NGO dedicated to promoting the emotional and mental well-being of individuals, with a particular focus on the LGBTQIA+ community,” says Srivastava. “While the foundation was formally established in 2023, our engagement with the community spans over a decade.”
Suramya’s work centres on connection and conversation. “We create safe spaces where the LGBTQIA+ community and the larger society can come together on the same platform, to listen, share, and learn from one another,” Srivastava explains. “We also engage with families, helping them understand and support their loved ones, because acceptance at home is often the foundation of mental well-being.”
Their signature event, Samvedna, brings journalists, mass communication students, and community members together to discuss inclusive reporting. “For us, Samvedna is not just an event,” says Srivastava. “It is a step toward transforming narratives and ensuring LGBTQIA+ stories are told with respect and authenticity.”
Suramya’s gatherings are modest, 25-30 participants for groups, 150-200 for larger events, but their impact is personal, layered, and lasting. “Community groups are becoming the heartbeat of inclusion in urban spaces,” says Srivastava. “They remind us that being different isn’t about division… it’s an invitation to understand, learn, and grow together.”
Future of healing
Back in Delhi, Sahara winds down gently in the evening. The audience lingers, still discussing Bandaged Moments, some trading phone numbers, others sitting quietly with their thoughts. There is no applause, no closing note, only the soft murmur of connection.
As the evening ends, the lavender and jasmine perfumes still hang in the air.
In a country where conversations around mental health have long been muted by stigma, gatherings like Sahara, Belong, and Suramya represent a cultural turning point. They offer what cities often forget to—pauses, empathy, and human-scale care.
“More than ever, people are realising that belonging and connection are fundamental to how safe, calm, and supported we feel in our everyday lives,” says Vohra. “We’re finally beginning to see belonging not as a soft concept, but as a basic human need.”
The next Sahara session is already planned. The chairs will be reset, the books rearranged, the tea brewed again. And in a city where the air remains heavy, a room will once again open its doors, fragrant, warm, and quietly radical.
Because in the end, healing often begins the same way every story does— with someone choosing to listen.
