This story begins with that same plan. It just doesn’t end there.

I was in Goa with my two best friends, Shraddha and Sangeeta. They plan trips with military precision. Every destination goes on a list, and every item gets checked off before the holiday ends. One of those items simply read: a good party.

Since finding that party somehow became my responsibility, I did what I usually do: I called a friend.

Anuraj, 24, is an electronic music DJ from Pune who works with Maushi, a collective known for live gigs, art, and cultural events. I trusted his taste enough to skip the Google search.

“Go to Shunya,” he said. The name rang a bell from years ago, though I’d completely forgotten about it. He mentioned I couldn’t drink before going there.

Shunya Wellness sits on Temple Road in Arambol, tucked near the area’s iconic banyan tree. Part wellness space, part cultural venue, part community gathering, it’s the kind of place people discover through word of mouth rather than tourist guides. On some evenings, the venue hosts pop-up artisan stalls featuring handmade jewelry, crystals, art, and other experiences that add to the community feel. Over the years, it’s been described in many ways, but one description kept coming up: spirituality. I didn’t know what that meant in practice, but I was curious to find out.

The problem was convincing my friends. They enjoy trying new things only when they know exactly what those things are. I’ve always believed some experiences are better when you know almost nothing about them. Even if they turn out terrible, at least they make for a good story.

So, in the interest of creating memories and testing my friends’ faith in me, I simply said: “I found a place. Trust me, just match my style.”

Arambol is in North Goa. If you’ve spent any time there, you’ll know it has its own personality. It feels slower than the rest of Goa, shaped by decades of backpackers, artists, and travelers who arrived for a few days and never left. The cafes are quieter, the clothes are looser, and the crowd feels more international than local.

Rose Petals > Wristbands

The entrance didn’t look like the beginning of a party.

We were welcomed with rose petals before anyone asked for our tickets. Then came instructions for the dance floor: no talking, no phones, no photographs, no staring at other guests. Before we stepped inside, they asked if we’d consumed alcohol.

It felt less like entering a venue and more like entering someone’s sacred space. The rules weren’t restrictions. They were invitations to be present, and everyone around us seemed perfectly happy to follow them.

After paying the entry fee (500 rupees before 8:00 PM, 700 rupees after), we found a mirror beside trays filled with glitter. No signs explained what to do. People simply dipped their fingers in, dusted it over their faces, and walked in.

Naturally, we followed.

 

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We swept glitter across our cheeks like blush, while others turned it into tiny works of art across their foreheads and shoulders. The men did the same and honestly looked great. If there was ever a place to forget that glitter had somehow become gendered, this was it.

Looking back, it reminded me that body adornment has always been part of celebration across cultures. Whether paint, jewelry, or flowers, people have long marked special occasions by transforming themselves. This just happened to involve glitter instead.

Ahead of the entrance, the space unfolded around us.

It had the feel of an old Indian house opening into a large courtyard, with a magnificent banyan tree standing at its center, beautifully dressed in lights. Right beneath it was a small prayer space where people quietly stopped to sit, reflect, or offer a prayer before moving on. On the same side, a few fire pits glowed softly as guests gathered around them in comfortable silence. A little further ahead was a small vegetarian cafe where people were eating, chatting, and resting.

We stopped for food before exploring further, and I still think about that meal, specifically the apple pie (my friend Shrads insisted I mention that). Dinner was simple: falafel with hummus, potato wedges, and warm slices of pie, but it tasted exactly right for the setting. The cafe overlooked the rest of Shunya, glowing under paper lanterns and fairy lights, with people drifting in and out between conversations, music, and occasional bursts of laughter.

On the other side of the banyan tree was the place everyone had been talking about without really talking about it.

The dance floor.

 

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Within minutes, it became clear why all those rules at the entrance suddenly made perfect sense.

Barefoot Is the Dress Code

The dance floor looked nothing like the ones we’re used to.

There were no flashing LED screens, no VIP sections, and no one squeezing through the crowd with drinks in both hands. Instead, people stood barefoot on the floor, waiting almost patiently, as if they already knew something we didn’t.

Everyone looked effortlessly themselves.

Flowy skirts, loose linen shirts, crochet tops, oversized jewelry, scarves tied around waists, silver rings stacked on fingers, hair braided, tied up, or completely wild. There was no dress code, but there was an unspoken understanding that comfort came before looking polished. As someone who studied fashion, I couldn’t help but notice how naturally everyone’s clothes moved with them. Breathable fabrics, earthy tones, and pieces that looked collected over years of traveling rather than bought for one holiday.

If you’re ever planning to visit a place like this, forget dressing for photographs. Dress for movement. Wear something you can sweat in, twirl in, and completely forget you’re wearing.

One Man, An Entire Orchestra

Then the music began.

Or rather, it slowly built itself.

Right under the tree (on the other side of where people were praying) stood the French musician Adrian Atma, surrounded by instruments that each looked like they’d tell a different story. A guitar rested beside him. There was an Indian bansuri flute, percussion instruments, a microphone, and what looked like a small control station.

The songs carried chants, folk influences, and verses dedicated to Saraswati and Shiva, blending seamlessly with electronic beats and world music. It felt ancient and modern at once, familiar even when you’d never heard any of it before.

For the next two hours, he became an entire orchestra.

He would begin with his voice, singing a phrase before capturing it into a loop with the tap of his foot. As it continued to play behind him, he’d reach for another instrument. First the guitar. Then the bansuri. Then the violin. A sitar-like string instrument. Hand percussion. An electronic drum pad. Every new layer was recorded, looped, and folded into the last, until one person somehow sounded like an entire ensemble. Between verses, he’d glance down to the pedals at his feet, quietly orchestrating it all while never missing a beat.

 

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I’d never seen live looping before. Watching him perform felt like watching someone cook without a recipe. You could see each ingredient go in, but by the end, you couldn’t quite believe they all came from the same pair of hands.

This is live looping, a performance technique where musicians record short phrases in real time and layer them into a constantly evolving composition.

Adrian Atma’s music draws from Sanskrit mantras, Indian classical traditions, shamanic rhythms, and folk melodies, brought together through live looping and layered over electronic soundscapes. The result isn’t music meant to be listened to from a distance. It’s designed to move with the room, gradually shifting from stillness to release, mirroring the emotional arc of a dancing experience.

But standing there, none of us was thinking about technical terms. We were simply trying to understand how one person could make a place feel so full.

And then I looked around.

Nobody was dancing the way social media has taught us dancing should look.

Which was exactly why everyone was dancing so beautifully.

Some people jumped with both hands in the air. Others barely moved their feet, choosing instead to sway with their eyes closed. A few spun in circles. Some laughed. Some cried. Couples danced together without saying a word, while strangers instinctively made space for one another.

No one was trying to impress anyone, checking if someone was watching, or stopping midway to record a story.

For the first ten minutes, I caught myself doing what most of us do on unfamiliar dance floors: wondering whether I looked awkward, whether I was moving too much or too little. Then I realized something.

Nobody cared.

And once you realize that, your body quietly stops performing.

It Turns Out, There’s a Name for This

Much later, while trying to understand what we had experienced, I discovered this wasn’t just an unusually wholesome party. It was a form of ecstatic dance, a movement practice that emerged on Hawaii’s Big Island in 2000, blending the freedom of festival-style dancing with the intention of conscious movement. Over the next two decades, it quietly grew into a global movement. Interestingly, when ecstatic dance reached Asia, one of the places where it began taking root was The Source (Banyan Tree) in Arambol, Goa. The idea itself is beautifully simple: remove everything that usually gets in the way (phones, conversations, alcohol, drugs, cameras, expectations, shoulds, oughts, and judgment) and let the music do the rest.

When you’re standing in the middle of it, the evenings become strangely meditative, not because anyone asks you to, but because it simply allows it to happen.

From Dancing to Breathing

The music didn’t end with one last song. It slowly dissolved into silence. This was the end of what they called an “Ecstatic Journey.”

Almost instinctively, everyone sat down on the dance floor, forming one large circle. The same room that had spent the last two hours pulsing with movement suddenly became incredibly still.

This was the closing circle.

A facilitator gently guided us through meditation. We closed our eyes, focused on our breath, and chanted Om together. There were moments of silence, moments of laughter, moments where strangers simply held each other’s gaze before clapping in rhythm. It wasn’t elaborate or performative. It felt like a natural ending to whatever had happened before.

By then, it made perfect sense why nobody had been talking on the dance floor.

The conversations had happened anyway. Just without words.

The Night Had One Last Surprise

As we were getting ready to leave, a man who had been dancing near us walked over and asked if we were in a hurry.

When we said no, he smiled and said, “Stay for the fire circle.”

None of us knew what a fire circle was, but after the evening we’d just had, we weren’t about to start saying no to unfamiliar experiences.

A few minutes later, people gathered around the fire pits we’d noticed when we first arrived. The man told the circle that they were ancestral songs holding deep personal meaning for him and invited everyone to sing along if they felt comfortable. We didn’t understand a single word of the language he was singing in, but somehow that didn’t matter. The melodies carried the room anyway. Some people sang along, others simply closed their eyes and listened, while a few gently swayed beside the fire.

There was something strangely comforting about ending the night that way.

No encore. No “one last song.” No rush to beat the traffic.

Just people sitting around a fire, singing together before quietly heading home.

What Stayed With Me

It was only after I returned that I realized how difficult this experience is to describe. Calling it a party feels inaccurate. Calling it a wellness retreat doesn’t quite fit either. Even spirituality, though deeply woven into the evening, doesn’t fully explain what happened there.

Maybe it doesn’t need a label.

What stayed with me wasn’t the meditation or even the music, as extraordinary as Adrian Atma’s performance was. It was watching people surrender completely to the music without the invisible rules we’ve attached to dancing.

Nobody was trying to look attractive, waiting for the chorus to pull out their phones, or needing alcohol to become a version of themselves they’d blame on the next morning.

For a few hours, people simply existed.

There’s something oddly radical about that in today’s time.

Somewhere along the way, dancing became another performance. We think about who’s watching, whether we know the steps, whether our outfit looks right, whether someone is filming, and whether we look cool enough to deserve being there.

This room quietly removed every one of those worries.

And what’s left when nobody is watching you?

Apparently, a room full of people dancing harder than they ever have, meditating, venting, and most importantly, feeling the moment.

We went looking for a memorable night out in Goa.

Instead, we stumbled into a place that made spirituality feel far less intimidating and far more human.

And honestly, I wish more nights ended around a fire than in the backseat of a cab, shouting over Google Maps about where to eat next.

And yes, before you ask, Shrads and Sangs absolutely loved it. Which means I’ve earned myself at least one more “just trust me” for our next trip.

The post Inside Goa’s Ecstatic Dance Culture: Where Music Becomes Meditation appeared first on Voicey World.

But the problem was her job. Sara works full-time from home, which means the usual ways of meeting people, say, through a canteen, perhaps a commute or a colleague who says, ‘we should grab lunch ’, weren’t on the table. “Working from home made it much harder to meet people and form meaningful connections organically,” Sara shares with Voicey.

So, last year, Sara did something slightly unhinged, and well, out of her comfort zone. She began inviting strangers to her apartment for coffee.

Girls, I get it, it sounds hella risky in the kind of era we live in, but Sara believes in doing a “good deed for herself” before she starts her day. Every morning, Sara makes coffee on her balcony. “There really is something about the whole process of measuring your beans, grinding them to that perfect fine texture, and then making that cup of coffee and hoping your latte art will come out right.”

This ritual led to what her monthly, daytime supper club is called Cuppa Jo. Coffee. Sara says, “Coffee has always felt like more than just a beverage. It’s a reason to slow down, sit with someone or with yourself and make time for a conversation.” She wanted to build something around her love for coffee and share it with everyone.

Five years from now, Sara’s only hope for Cuppa Jo is that people make friendships, memories, and stories they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

But Cuppa Jo didn’t start as a mission to find friends. In fact, Sara loves cooking, baking and hosting too. And the people around her had been asking for years when she’d finally open a cafe.

“That is very much my retirement goal,” she says. For her, this monthly supper club is a way of “meeting her goal halfway without having to take that leap of faith just yet.”

There was also, in her words, a slightly selfish reason. “I just thought it would be nice to have more people in my life.”

Because the reality is, making friends as an adult feels like a chore, and Sara can’t pretend to be friends with anyone to save her life. As kids, you make friends because you share a classroom or a park. After that, everything gets deliberate. “We have work, routines, responsibilities, and less time to just exist around other people.” In a new city, you can be surrounded by people every day and still have nobody to call for a spontaneous coffee. And someone has to go first; Cuppa Jo is her way of making that first step easier. “You don’t have to show up knowing anyone. You just have to be open to meeting someone.”

Matcha served at Sara’s apartment

Here, everyone already has something to talk about, because they like coffee or they’re curious about it. And then, of course, there’s the setting. “There’s something about a smaller gathering in a drawing room on a couch that makes it easier to let your guard down. It feels less like networking and more like being invited into someone’s home.” It’s also why she calls it a daytime supper club and not an apartment cafe. Supper clubs are about the table more than the food, but they usually happen at night. She wanted that feeling in the afternoon, with coffee as the centrepiece. “An apartment cafe sounds like you’re just coming over to buy a drink. Cuppa Jo is about the whole experience.”

So, in all, Cuppa Jo has no strict playbook, but it does have one rule: no talking about work. And well, to be honest, in an age when all of us base our entire identities on what we do for a living, this experience is an undoing itself because her reasoning is hard to argue with.

After all, “‘What do you do?’ is usually one of the first questions we ask. And suddenly you’re describing your job title instead of who you really are.”

She’s no conversation police; all Sara wants is to give people the permission to exist outside their professional identity for a few hours.

Sara loves cooking, baking, and hosting too, and the people around her had been asking for years when she’d finally open a cafe

Sara remembers her first pop-up “so vividly”, mostly because it was chaos. Her family was visiting, they were dealing with a medical situation, and everything that could go wrong…did go wrong. She came very close to cancelling. “I was just spiralling in the kitchen,” she says. Thoughts and questions running through her mind: “Maybe I can’t do this. Maybe it was the wrong decision.”

Then she listened. Through the kitchen door, all she could hear was people laughing and chatting and having a really good afternoon. “Every time I heard that, it just meant everything, and I kept going.”

The first time around, ten people turned up, of whom three or four were acquaintances, plus a few strangers, including her cousin’s college friends, whom she’d never met.

The room does the rest because there is music in the background and dogs are welcome!

Ten was a crowd she felt comfortable with. “Sometimes what feels like a complete disaster behind the scenes can still be something really special for the people experiencing it.”

And the ten people who turned up were curated because “Cuppa Jo isn’t an open-door cafe where anyone can walk in,” says Sara. People sign up, and she curates the guest list for each edition. The address goes only to confirmed guests, because it’s a residential property. “I want to respect everyone’s privacy, including my own.”

The sign-up is a registration form where she asks what drew you to the experience, what you’re interested in, a couple of personality-based questions, and what you’d love to get out of spending an afternoon with a group of strangers.

And what she’s reading for might surprise you. She shares, “Your answer does not have to be the most impressive. I’m just more interested in people who seem curious and open to the experience.” And she isn’t picking individuals so much as building a table. “It’s less about selecting the right type of people, and more about being thoughtful of the group she is bringing together.”

With gatherings this small, she thinks about the intellectual mix in the room, and how to manage the room while giving new connections a chance. If you miss out, you’re not binned because Sara keeps your details and reaches out when a later edition might suit you better.

Once you’re in, nobody’s going to make you perform. “Some people are naturally outgoing, while others take a little longer to warm up. You shouldn’t have to be the loudest person in the room to feel like you belong there.” She’s honest about what she’s asking of her guests, too. “It takes a little bit of courage and consideration for strangers to choose to spend their afternoon going to another stranger’s house to meet a room full of strangers. So, yeah, I think it is a balancing act for sure.”

The coffee menu at the day supper club

And she makes sure she doesn’t leave the conversation to chance, either. Before the activities start, there’s an ice-breaker with cue cards and prompts.

One of her favourites: “What’s your most recent recollection of happiness?” It’s a quick way to find out who you click with.

“You just might discover that you have nothing in common professionally, but you share a very specific, very random interest.”

The room does the rest because there is music in the background and dogs are welcome, and there are games, including tournament-style editions where her sister built a custom order management system and a live leaderboard. “A game gives you something to do with your hands, music gives you something to talk about, and a dog will happily interrupt any awkward silence without asking for anyone’s permission.”

I really think a lot of these well-thought-out bits come from the fact that Sara is an introverted extrovert. She is my junior from school, and even when we both used to hang out, I remember how she took her own sweet time to open up to me.

And I think that’s why she gets it and believes that nobody has to be the most interesting person in the room. “You can just play a game, sing along to a song, or get invested in a ridiculous leaderboard. And somewhere along the way, you just stop feeling like a stranger.”

The hard part, however, is doing all this alongside a full-time corporate job. Menu testing, sourcing, prepping from scratch, setting up the space, registrations, outreach, packaging, vendors, and “being your own social media agency” are all a part of the one-woman army.

Because it’s a passion project, she does most of it herself, though her sister and close friends pitch in, serving, thinking up games and giving feedback.

What keeps Sara going isn’t the numbers, though they’re quietly impressive: around 18 editions serving over 250 cups of coffee and matcha.

Some guests even travel in from outside the city just for an edition. It’s the smaller things. “Hearing that people had a lovely time, seeing guests return, or finding out that people who met at one of our editions have stayed in touch.”

It’s like she went looking out for friends and now has built her own li’l community. And now that Sara has one with more than 500 people across Instagram and WhatsApp, what does she really want now that her goal is fulfilled?

She doesn’t reach for anything grand; all she wants is a “sense of belonging without having to earn it. Somewhere we can show up as we are without needing to be particularly interesting, successful, or entertaining.”

Which explains a lot. That is why the form doesn’t want your most impressive answer, why nobody has to be the loudest in the room, and why job titles stay outside. The whole thing is built around a place “where you can be quiet without it being awkward, and where you feel like someone would notice if you weren’t around.”

Most of us have people, she says, but “we’re still looking for spaces where we feel connected. For me, community is about creating more opportunities for those connections to happen.”

Her advice to anyone tempted to copy her is refreshingly unglamorous. “You don’t need to have everything figured out before you begin. Start with what you have, invite a few people in, and see what happens.”

Five years from now, Sara’s only hope for Cuppa Jo is that people make friendships, memories, and stories they wouldn’t have had otherwise. “Maybe someone met their closest friend here, or simply had a Saturday that felt a little less lonely.”

The post The Bengaluru Living Room Where Strangers Show Up for Coffee and Aren’t Allowed To Talk About Work appeared first on Voicey World.