At grief retreats, healing begins in the company of strangers
Grief retreats help people reconcile with loss at their own pace and tend to their mental health in spaces free of judgement
It’s a hazy Sunday morning. Disha Wadhwani is in her kitchen, baking a sugarless banana cake. It should be ready in the next 20 minutes—6.30am on the dot. Once done, she cuts two big slices, packs them in a box, and leaves her house. A 2km walk later, she arrives at her destination: a green bench in the middle of a park in a Gurugram neighbourhood. She sits and eats a cake slice while watching people on their morning walk.
“The second piece is for my Shibu," says Wadhwani, 39, an architect and a mother of two. Shibu, a street dog turned “youngest son" of the Wadhwani family, died at the age of 5 in September 2023, two months after Wadhwani’s grandmother succumbed to cancer. “We were long prepared for dadi (grandmother); Shibu just didn’t wake up one morning," says Wadhwani.
For Wadhwani and Shibu, 7am was set for daily morning walks. Sundays were fixed as Banana Cake Day. Both would sit together on the green bench, feasting on their cake slices while watching the world go by. “Those 15-20 minutes used to be our moment."
A year ago Wadhwani decided to continue the Sunday ritual, in memory of Shibu. “After he and dadi passed away, I became a person I didn’t even recognise," she recalls. “I was working 18 hours a day, didn’t take a single day off from work, and hardly spoke to anyone. Once, I snapped at someone in a restaurant for laughing too loudly; I couldn’t stand seeing someone so happy. I knew I was grieving but didn’t know how to show it."
Last year, following a friend’s suggestion, she started searching online for wellness retreats and came across “grief retreats". She picked one surrounded by deodars and snow-capped mountains in Himachal Pradesh. “Those three weeks (at the retreat) didn’t lessen the pain, but the environment helped give some structure to my grief. Does that make sense?" She started to understand how she was grieving, the patterns—like working too much, not interacting, with others getting angry easily.
Grief retreats, which last anywhere from a week to a month, are a relatively new category under wellness vacations. They include what retreats generally offer, like a peaceful environment, massages, yoga, meditation, Ayurveda-led therapies, wellness experts-led counselling sessions, group activities such as gardening, singing, painting and pottery, and communal eating, but each is customised as per the individual.
For instance, a grieving person who is emotionally strong but has less control over their emotions would be given, say, drum-based sound therapy to help calm them. The more restrained individual, on the other hand, would listen to softer music. Some centres also include dancing sessions as a form of psychotherapy to promote integration of emotional, social and physical health. If a person wishes to stay in their room during the initial days of a grief retreat, they are nudged softly to sit in a communal dining space to familiarise themselves with the surroundings.
There are no India-specific numbers to indicate how widespread the concept of grief retreats is. But a quick Google search leaves one spoilt for choice. If a wellness destination doesn’t offer a grief retreat as a separate category, it will most probably have experts to address several emotions humans experience, including grief. Globally, the trend has been on the rise. In its March 2025 trends report, the Global Wellness Institute, a non-profit that tracks the industry, says grief retreats and “even cruises have gained popularity" over the past two years.
Such retreats don’t come cheap—they can cost between ₹5,000 and over ₹1 lakh a day. It’s a luxury only some can afford but their growth reflects the times we live in. Conversations about mental health, and by extension grief, have been growing louder over the past few years, especially post-pandemic. Grief tech is now an emerging field, and the grief counselling market is likely to reach $4.52 billion by 2029 from $2.73 billion in 2022, states the Global Wellness Institute report.
Bengaluru-based Arouba Kabir, an emotional and mental health professional and the founder of Enso Wellness platform, has observed the shift in attitudes closely. During the covid-19 pandemic, she used to hold online workshops where people would anonymously share their grief over the loss of a loved one or lost time.
“I went to a party this Halloween and two strangers, on their own, spoke with me about how they were grieving the loss of a loved one. I was pleasantly surprised, but that tells you how comfortable we are becoming with grief," says Kabir. “During (actor) Satish Shah’s recent death ceremony, his family and friends were laughing, singing, crying, remembering, and celebrating him. That’s what sharing grief with the community used to be. Nowadays, death ceremonies have become a rushed affair. By the seventh day (after someone’s death), you have to be back in the office. Where’s the time to grieve?"
Grief is not a problem to be solved or resolved, says Kabir. It can come in various forms: breakdown of a relationship, a missed job opportunity after months of trying, a failed business, the loss of what was once home, memories of sexual abuse during childhood. Yet no grief is the same and needs to be tended and lived through for however long it may take. Like David Kessler, who has written several books on dealing with the aftermath of a death, has said in several instances, grief needs to be “witnessed, not deflected".
“Too often, our family and friends try to disparage us for mourning for too long or for not showing any emotions. Plus, with the shrinking of families, the traditional support systems have also shrunk. You want to grieve, but either there’s no one around you or people want you to get over it fast," says Kabir. “Grief retreats then seem like a ‘safe’ space. They offer care and no judgement and charge money for it."
IN A STRANGER’S WORLD
Of the 300-odd people who check into Veda5 Wellness Retreat, which has properties in Rishikesh, Goa and Kerala, every month about 60 people—mostly over the age of 40—come for a grief retreat; one night is priced over ₹15,000. The client is first offered a counselling session to customise their stay based on what they are experiencing and their expectations—a standard practice in the industry.
Shuchita Singh, the Rishikesh-based general manager of Veda5, offers an example. They recently had a 55-year-old client, who had lost his partner and children. “He didn’t want to talk to his family members or friends since it reminded him of the life he had with his wife and kids," says Singh, who has a PhD in Ayurveda. “But he did want to talk about them to strangers."
Soon, while regularly engaging in yoga and meditation sessions, he was talking to others during evening walks, lunch hours, and gardening sessions about his wife and their life together.
When Binod A., 42, checked into a grief retreat for 21 days in Coimbatore in July, he told the counsellor he didn’t want to talk to anyone. His electronics business was doing well, but his marriage had fallen apart. “I had not eaten a single meal at home (after his divorce was finalised a year ago). My dining table reminded me of the times we spent together, the conversations we had, the laughs we shared, and the fights we had. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone because I felt I had nothing left to say."
After a week, Binod started journaling as the wellness experts suggested, jotting down what he missed about his former life and the joy and anger he felt. Regular sessions of yoga, meditation and kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer or powdered gold or silver, followed. “I won’t lie to you, there were several instances when I felt that I was spending over a lakh just to buy some comfort. But then there were moments when I felt that I wasn’t the only one grieving. The more I listened to others, the more I realised we are all trying to come to terms with our different griefs. There was this one instance when (as part of a group origami exercise) we made a paper ship and set it to sail in a small lake. I thought it was such a stupid thing to do; it sank instantly," he laughs. “But after doing it, I cried uncontrollably."
Besides art-based activities, scientifically known to help regulate emotions, wellness retreats also customise massages and therapies that help people introspect. The 21-acre Six Senses Vana wellness retreat in Dehradun, for instance, offers Watsu, a form of aquatic bodywork that combines elements of Japanese Shiatsu massage and stretching in warm water. “Many guests describe a return to a deeply restful state—where the body feels safe enough to let go. Some start weeping, remembering their grief," says Arun Pillai, wellness director, Six Senses Vana.
Packages at the centre start at ₹55,000 per night. In recent years, about 50 people have signed up for grief-specific wellness programmes at Six Senses Vana. “Earlier, people used to come only for overall wellness, and during the programme, they would discover that they are grieving. It’s very recent that people have started coming with grief-related problems," says Pillai. “We are not offering a solution to grief. The Ayurveda treatments, music sessions, Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicines), the chakra-balancing yoga, they all are meant to provide a safe space that allows people to sit with their emotions, away from their busy lives and constantly ringing phones. The avenues to grieve in our daily life are reducing."
When Wadhwani checked into a grief retreat, paying ₹1.5 lakh for two weeks, she felt ridiculous. “My only thought was, ‘This is going to be some mumbo-jumbo’, but I wanted to get away from my family, who kept on asking me if I was okay. One day at the retreat, they asked me to write two separate letters to Shibu and dadi. I cried for hours."
Are people who stay at grief retreats able to “address" their grief? The people I spoke with said they don’t know. What they do know is they no longer distract themselves when thoughts of loss overwhelm them. Binod, for instance, has left the home he once shared with his former wife and is now searching for a partner.
I ask Wadhwani what she does with Shibu’s share of the banana cake. “You know, dogs mostly bark at birds, but Shibu used to look at them and smile, and when they used to fly, he used to jump like a happy puppy. I feed his share to the birds, hoping he jumps with joy wherever he is."
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