It started six years ago. A small group of people in Mumbai, led by Aspi Mistry, a practising Buddhist, decided to meet every Saturday. There was no real agenda: the Dharma Rain Centre was established to discuss in a lively manner all aspects of ethics, spirituality and its practice, to study religious texts and to meditate together. But of late, Aspi has noticed something unusual. “If I mention our group at a social gathering, I am immediately surrounded by people who want to give me their e-mail IDs to be added to our mailing list,” he says. So what began as a small group is now a collective with 300 members on its roster. “I also see more people near the spirituality section in bookstores, which is usually in a well-hidden corner,” he laughs.

What is dramatically different about this new and intense interest in all things spiritual in Indian metros is that there is nothing ritualistic about it. Neither is it rooted in piety, which sent earlier generations to temples and satsangs. The newfound attraction to spirituality is more measured, based as it is on an almost scholarly approach. Instead of waiting till retirement to ask the age-old questions, city folks are starting early, at the peak of their careers, eager to find answers that help them in the here and now.

And the numbers are growing. Some 700 people have signed up for the home study course on Bhagavad Gita, launched in July by the Chinmaya Mission Foundation, which specialises in courses on Vedanta and Sanskrit. “We have students from both genders, all ages—from 18 to 80—and people from varied fields like teachers, businessmen, builders, government employees, corporate executives, research students, retired people and housewives,” says Manisha Makhecha, the coordinator for the mission’s home-study programmes. The fee: Rs 3,000 for a 15-month course delivered by e-mail. And the reasons people are taking the course? Some say they “want to improve the standards of personal life by applying this knowledge”, some say they are on a spiritual quest. Some want to learn how to be happy.

In Delhi, the Ahmisa Trust, which organises sanghas to discuss Buddhist texts and practise meditation in several locations across the city every alternate Thursday, started a new chapter in Noida a month ago. The crowd is mixed, aged anywhere between 30 and 65. Anita Anand, who coordinates the Defence Colony sangha, attributes the shift to spirituality to the pressures of modern life, in which marriages and families are breaking down. People are realising that material comforts may be fulfilled but emotional needs are not. “Once the children leave the house, and job responsibilities are routine, midlife crisis strikes. People start to wonder what their life is worth,” says Anita.

As Aspi puts it, most people usually turn to spirituality after some trauma, a common enough occurrence in this age, asking two versions of the same query—‘Why me?’, or the more general ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’

Take Aditya Apte, an investment manager, who has never been the “religious sort”. But after he turned 31, he began seeking a “deeper meaning” to his life. So he decided to enrol for a six-day course called ‘Journey of Self-Discovery’, run by ISKCON monks. He was expecting to find retired people as classmates and was pleasantly surprised to find most of the 160 students were young professionals like him. There were some MBA and engineering students too. Chaitanya Roop, the monk who taught the class, came armed with PowerPoint presentations on topics like ‘The Search for Happiness’, ‘The Existence of God’, ‘Reincarnation’ and, of course, ‘Why Bad Things Happen to Good People’. At the end of the six days, after approximately nine hours of lectures and discussions, most of the class had signed up for Round 2—an advanced course on the Bhagavad Gita.For Dr Rekha Kusum, a participant, the Gita is first and foremost a “practical text”. “I didn’t want to wait till I was retired to read the Gita. It is a blueprint for a dynamic life and it certainly helps you function more efficiently in these stressful times, in a more detached manner. It teaches you not to take everything so personally,” she says. Nilesh Neharia, 33, an options trader dealing with the ups and downs of the stockmarket daily, similarly turned to the Gita to function in equanimity while still giving his “100 per cent”.