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In the CNN-News18 Rising Bharat Summit, Neelsh Misra, Luke Coutinho and Shveta Salve shared how to get away from the big cities has helped them rediscover the balance, health and a deeper meaning.
Neelsh Misra, Shveta Salve and Luke Coutinho at the Bharat Rising 2025 (LR) summit. (Image: News18)
Talking about the session Inverse migration In the CNN-News18 Rising Bharat Summit 2025, prominent personalities shared how to get away from urban hustle to the quieter and connected life to nature is transforming lives. Entrepreneur, welfare coach and lifestyle ambassador, Fit India Movement Luke Coutinho; Shveta Salve actor and businessman; and Audio Storyteller, author, founder of Slow & Gaon Connection Neelsh Misra reflected on his trips to choose a slower and more intentional way of life.
Neelsh Misra, founder of Gaon connection and SlowHe talked about his decision to leave the world of Mumbai’s accelerated rhythm media and establish himself in a slower lifestyle in a town. “When I left Bombay, I thought I was doing a lonely trip, but I realized that thousands were walking along the same path,” Misra said. He added that his movement was not an escape but a deliberate choice to live a more punished life. “Slow is not a place. It is a mental state,” he said, highlighting how his decision to document and embrace rural life has inspired many others to reconsider the definition of success.
Luke Coutinho, a main voice in well -being, emphasized that deceleration is not only desirable but essential. “If we do not decrease the speed, the disease will slow us,” Coutinho said. He explained that chronic stress, drag deprivation and nature disconnection are promoting an increase in health problems. “Most of us yearn for the nature in different ways. That’s why we see vacations in nature, not only in cities,” he said. Coutinho added that health, family time and nature are privileges often overlooked in the rush for material success. “Everyone has a life. How we choose to live it depends on us,” he said.
The actor and businessman Shveta Salve shared his experience of moving from Mumba’s entertainment industry to a quieter life in Goa. “He was supposed to be a sabbatical but became a reinvention,” Salve said. Becoming a mother changed her perspective on the success and priorities of life. “Success does not mean sitting in a joint room. It can also mean running a cafeteria in the shoes on the beach,” he said, added that her movement helped her find a stronger and clear voice.
Salve approached the notion that only privileged can afford a lifestyle of this type, saying: “Success is not just about working in 16 hours. It is about finding time for what matters the family, creativity, life itself.” He added that even while running multiple businesses and continued his career as an actor, he found more balance and joy living far from the big city.
On the issue of raising children outside the metropolitan areas, Misra and Salve reflect their choices. Misra, who moved Lucknow’s daughter to Goa, said she wanted to isolate her from materialism as long as possible. “It’s not about escaping pollution. It’s about hugging a different and slower life,” he said. Salve added: “I live in Jomo, not in Fomo,” explaining that the joy of missing urban fever had already given her the family a more satisfactory life.
Closing the session, Luke Coutinho reflected on why this trend has emerged so strongly in a single generation. “The busy culture is not natural. Any unnatural thing creates stress and stress pushes people to look for more natural and significant lives,” he said.
The discussion left the audience with a powerful message: the deceleration is not about giving up ambition: it is about redefining ambition in the terms themselves, prioritizing health, family and a deeper connection with nature.