When Mumbai Ladies Headed to Kitty Su to Shine Their Light

Photographs by Shantanu Pawar and Analita Seth

It was a glorious, high-energy day at Kitty Su, The LaLiT, Mumbai as dozens of women came together for eShe magazine’s personal-growth workshop for women, Shine Your Light.

The four-hour workshop had four empowering sessions by powerful speakers:

Achieving flawless communication by American-Italian motivational speaker Kass Thomas
Zumba dance by celebrity zumba instructor Priti Panchmatia
Tapping the wisdom of your wild side by award-winning theatre personality Rashi Bunny
Journaling for personal transformation by former Life Positive editor and motivational speaker Suma Varughese
‘Game of Hugs’ by eShe founder Aekta Kapoor

There was also a delicious buffet lunch, fabulous gift hampers, and the chance to network with like-minded women.

Here’s all the action behind the scenes.

Kass Thomas is a best-selling author, coach, and facilitator at Access Consciousness for people who are ready to discover their true nature and choose more in their lives.

Born in Boston, USA, and now based in Rome, Italy, Kass has travelled the world over, facilitated over 1,000 classes and assisted over 10,000 people, including American celebrities such as Madonna, Ray Charles, Denzel Washington, Whoopi Goldberg, Michelle Pfeiffer, Miles Davis and Morgan Freeman.

The audience was mesmerised as Kass spoke and led the audience through energy-lifting techniques.

The second session had the audience up on their feet with celebrity zumba instructor Priti H Panchmatia. She led the ladies through a warm-up session followed by some serious dance moves.

Priti has had advanced training in this dance form from the US, and has over a decade of experience teaching fitness to Mumbai-kars. Zumba is a high-energy, dance-based, interval-style workout set to great music. It helps you have fun while you burn calories, and is suited to women of all ages, fitness levels and body types.

After a break for coffee and chit-chat, the audience settled down for an inspirational session on journaling for personal transformation, conducted by the founder-facilitator of the Zen of Good Writing Course Suma Varughese.

The course is the summation of her work as a writer, editor and journalist for 40 years, having worked with some of the leading magazines in the country.

Suma believes that the more we are in touch with ourselves and know ourselves, the better writers we will be. Many in the audience shared personal anecdotes of journaling and how it had helped them through difficult times in their lives.

Next came Aekta Kapoor’s interesting ‘Game of Hugs’. The founder editor of eShe, who is also a certified hypnotherapist and pranic healer, gives motivational talks on inner transformation, sexual empowerment, following one’s purpose and ‘shining one’s light’.

She talked about the benefits of touching and hugging. She then led the audience through a guided ‘hugging meditation’, followed by a group hugging game when everyone had to hug everyone else in the room. Definitely a high-serotonin session!

Next, award-winning theatre personality Rashi Bunny took to the stage and electrified the room with her interactive workshop based on techniques taken from the performing arts. She believes that the purpose of art is to add meaning to life and to elevate human consciousness.

She has won numerous awards for India at various international theatre festivals, and was awarded the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar for Theatre Direction.

She conducted a session called ‘Gypsy Woman: The Wisdom of the Wild Within’, and had the audience act out things they’d never tried before, leaving them all feeling light, liberated and joyful.

Finally, the workshop ended with a lavish buffet lunch hosted by Kitty Su. The participants had ample opportunities for photo sessions, selfies and even media bytes. Everyone left with a goodie bag full of gift hampers by Taaseer, Mean Bean Co. and Omved.