Facing mortality together: How Death Cafés are helping people talk openly about dying

On a quiet evening at a cultural venue in New Delhi, a group of people sit in a circle, their voices low but intent. Some sip tea, others jot down thoughts in notebooks. The conversation is measured and thoughtful. It is also about death.

One participant, a woman in her thirties, speaks about the silence that followed her father’s passing—how no one in her family could bring themselves to say the words aloud. An elderly man recounts his fear of becoming invisible in his final years, fading into the background of a world that moves too fast. A young boy shares a different kind of loss: “My mother once told me about an older sibling who never came into the world.”

No one here finds his words unusual.

This is a Death Café—an unscripted gathering where strangers meet to openly discuss mortality, an unusual conversation in a society that often avoids it. Swiss sociologist Bernard Crettaz pioneered the idea in 2004 with café mortels.

In 2011, British entrepreneur Jon Underwood and psychotherapist Sue Barsky Reid formalised it as Death Cafés—informal meetings over tea and cake, free of agenda or doctrine. Now a global movement in over 80 countries, Death Cafés challenge taboos and encourage candid dialogue on death.

“When the pandemic hit—especially during the second wave—death became inescapably real,” says Dr Sneha Rooh, 37, a palliative physician and somatic and art-based therapist who has been hosting Death Cafés in India since 2017.

“Social media was flooded with people desperately searching for medical resources, oxygen cylinders, hospital beds. Grief was everywhere. We saw an overwhelming number of posts about loss, and it was no longer an abstract concept—it was deeply personal.”

Before COVID-19, those who attended Death Cafés often engaged with death philosophically. “It was more of an abstract exploration,” Dr Rooh recalls.

“But after the pandemic, it became deeply personal. Every family had a story—someone who needed medicine, someone who struggled to survive, someone they lost. Death was no longer a distant concept; it became embedded in everyday life.”

For a time, these gatherings had to pause. “At one point, we had to stop our meetings because people were already overwhelmed with grief in their daily lives,” she explains. When conversations resumed, they took on a new shape.

“Now, even though we continue the same work, I’ve had to integrate more art-based methods into our discussions,” Dr Rooh elaborates.

“The focus has shifted towards exploring how to live meaningfully. After all, discussing death is, at its core, a conversation about life—about purpose, about what we do with our time. The pandemic forced us to confront our mortality in a way many had never done before.”

A cultural shift around death

Death Cafés challenge deeply ingrained cultural taboos. Traditionally, in many societies, death was spoken about in hushed tones, shrouded in superstition. “Children weren’t allowed to attend funerals, and families avoided discussing posthumous matters,” Dr Rooh notes. But today, younger generations—millennials and Gen Z—are embracing these discussions in ways that were once unthinkable.

“They are not only acknowledging death as an inevitable part of life but also planning their own end-of-life rituals—writing wills, specifying how they want to be memorialised,” she explains. This shift, she believes, isn’t happening by choice but out of necessity.

Recently, Dr Rooh experimented with a different format: a potluck picnic, held outdoors, where participants gathered to share food and reflect on death in an informal setting. A card game designed to prompt reflections on mortality became the afternoon’s centrepiece.

“We started with light-hearted but profound questions: If it were your last day, what would you want to eat? What song would you like played in your hospital room? And their answers were remarkable,” Dr Rooh notes.

Social media has reshaped how we talk about death, she says. “It exposed me to different cultural perspectives and led me to Death Cafés—a concept I first discovered online while researching what makes a ‘good death.’ Even those in palliative care seemed reluctant to confront their mortality.” That curiosity sparked her decision to introduce Death Cafés to India. Pop culture, too, has helped normalise these conversations.

Talking about death, living more fully

Death Cafés aren’t therapy, but they offer something just as valuable: a space to reflect. Attendees don’t need to be grieving a recent loss to participate. Some come to process personal experiences, while others simply want to contemplate their mortality in a communal setting.

Each session is unique, often shaped by themes or artistic exercises. “For instance, in October, we screened The Fault in Our Stars, a film about teenagers confronting terminal illness. It prompted a discussion about the suddenness of death and the importance of cherishing life,” Dr Rooh explains.

“In December, we focused on a ‘Life Review.’ Participants reflected on the key moments and relationships in their lives, considered what the next chapter holds, and ultimately, how they envision their own ending.”

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The goal isn’t to dwell on morbidity but to use death as a lens through which to examine life.

Art has become central to these conversations. “Initially, Death Cafés were purely conversational, but over time, I realised conversations alone could become ego-driven—some people dominate, quoting books, while others fall silent. Art allows everyone to engage in a personal, introspective way,” Dr Rooh highlights.

One exercise, The River of Life, asks participants to visualise their life as a flowing river, charting its course and the people who have shaped it.

Initially, these conversations unfolded in shifting coffee shop settings before finding a home in larger cultural hubs.

Institutions, reluctance, and rebranding

Despite growing interest, Death Cafés still face institutional resistance. Even in progressive spaces, the word death itself is often unwelcome.

“To be honest, the people who attend Death Cafés, no matter where they are, tend to come with open hearts,” she says. “The real difference lies in how institutions and venues respond. Some cultural spaces won’t even use the term ‘Death Café’ in their programming. We had to rebrand it as “This Transient Life.”

The hesitation isn’t unique. Even in Hyderabad, where she first started, there was pushback. “At first, we held our sessions at a cultural centre, which was open to it. But eventually, even they grew hesitant—death was seen as an uncomfortable, almost unwelcome topic. There’s a persistent taboo,” she admits.

Why it matters

In an age where climate disasters, wars, and pandemics have made mortality impossible to ignore, the need for spaces like Death Cafés is more urgent than ever.

At their core, Death Cafés aren’t just about dying. They are about living—deliberately, meaningfully, and with the understanding that time is not infinite. “And that, perhaps, is why people keep coming back,” says Dr Rooh.

“In the modern, post-capitalist world, few concepts are as difficult to grapple with as mortality,” says Aparna Sanyal, Co-Founder of Red Door.

“Urban life, shaped by nuclear families and detached from nature’s rhythms, has pushed death to the margins—something we neither control nor wish to confront. The idea behind hosting a Death Café with Dr Sneha was to gently reintroduce reflections on mortality. We believe that making peace with death is the key to truly embracing life.”