Not long ago, while walking to the Kunjapuri temple at the foot of the Indian Himalayas, retreat participants discovered Rishikesh. Their advisor asked them what the city was famous for. “The Beatles,” I proposed, knowing that in Rishikesh musicians meditated with the Maharishi in the 1960s.
This is not bad, but the consultant is looking for a more applicable answer: Rishikesh would be the cradle of yoga, where Patanjali wrote his Sutras more than 2,000 years ago.
Today, it is the emblematic city of another type of religious seeker (perhaps not rock stars, but sometimes prominent and indeed successful personalities) who travel in search of renewal in life. Their destination is Ananda in the Himalayas, a place of luxury. Award-winning wellness hotel.
Like other retreats along the Ganges, Ananda has yoga, Ayurvedic medicine, and Vedanta (Hindu philosophy) as its main pillars. Unlike those other places, it does so in a transcendent herbal setting, with sumptuous amenities that go hand in hand. The crown of this 100-acre estate is the palace built for Maharaja Narenda Shah in 1895.
Now, visitors are greeted in the palace with garlands of marigolds and ceremonial blessings, and this sets the tone for the next feast. This basically happens in a set of buildings located below the palace, built around the year 2000.
They come with a restaurant with a large indoor dining room and a beautiful shaded terrace, a 25,000-square-foot spa with 24 treatment rooms and a state-of-the-art fitness center, and a building that houses up to 70 rooms. (The exception is a historic charmer in the old palace. )While these are in a position to grab a planned snack, they will offer grandeur of dominion and comfort, as well as personal balconies with perspectives of the palace or the valleys below. This excellent nature, most visible, remains at the center of the experience.
“It’s been more than two decades since we started, with only one palace on the edge of time, surrounded by acres of wild lantana and herbal beauty. At the time, all I had was a dream: [a] picture of what I was looking for to achieve it and where I wanted to be,” says Ashok Khanna, founder and CEO of Ananda.
“As the world has changed, so have we; But deep down, we have defended those ideals and principles,” he continues. “It was philosophy [that] gave birth to Ananda in the Himalayas. My concept was to bring Combine the remedies, ancient practices, and deep-rooted wisdom of Indian culture and combine them with the most productive foreign practices. . . This place inspired me to bring to life the wellness destination I had in mind.
Although the focus is on yoga and Ayurveda, which are sciences, they are more like a laser. Each consumer receives a remote consultation to determine a program at the time of booking, and some other in-person consultation. with an Ayurvedic doctor upon arrival. Among other purposes, it identifies the consumer’s dosha (the type of framework, in Ayurveda, that informs everything from the food served to the oils used in spa treatments) and refines its agenda.
An Ayurvedic treatment
The strategy now is that of “clinical well-being,” says Ankur Verma, director of well-being and training operations, and highlights that everything involves a giant component of the latter. “We have objective means of measuring things. “
From the customer’s point of view, Ananda was a conventional spa destination, similar, for example, to a Six Senses with its trendy amenities. Over the past decade, it has become a true wellness retreat, requiring some sacrifices.
My first stop about 12 years ago, at the beginning of this transition. The general manager of the time highlighted the low-alcohol wines on the menu (8% or 9%, but still powerful), the food was plentiful and the desserts would arrive in the rooms at the time of preparation for the night.
Meditation in Ananda
Now, visitors who enroll in wellness programs, like most, are being asked to give up their vices early. There is no sugar, alcohol, or caffeine and the food is almost exclusively vegetarian. It’s not just about optimizing the effects of a guest’s stay, but also about giving the impression that they can enjoy a healthy meal.
“The time spent at Ananda deserves to be an investment to change your lifestyle,” says CEO Aniket Sarkar. He states that, according to his vision, “hospitality enriches the life of a user in need” and adds that almost each and every one of them knows that everything can be improved. “Every remedy and every meal is a step in that direction. It’s an environment set up to break old behaviors before creating new ones. We need our visitors to feel that well-being is sustainable. .
Guests who come in search of rigorous detoxification, panchakarma (an Ayurvedic rejuvenation), and weight loss systems follow liquid or very limited diets, but in general, the food is bland and overly spartan. There is a wide variety, from all over India and beyond. , with a satisfying, highly spicy quotient. I never felt full, but I didn’t feel hungry either.
Baked Tofu Wraps with Sprouts and Pickled Ginger
Everyone is encouraged to take a personal or organizational cooking class, which includes some Ayurvedic principles (what to do for each dosha, the wonders of ghee), as well as general tips for eating white, such as opting for genuine vegetables instead of highly processed synthetic meat. and tips for making food taste great.
Chef Diwaker Balodi, kitchen director, grew up in the luxurious Oberoi resorts of India, where he cooked with meat, salt and other apparent elements to make the food taste good. But getting from there to that wasn’t difficult, he says. he says. “It’s the same cooking techniques. We just want to apply the new wisdom we have here.
In any case, food is the welcome punctuation of days that combine slowness and rigor, skill and self-discovery. There is yoga in the morning and discussions on meditation and philosophy in the late afternoon. Guests are given notebooks filled with journaling prompts. , and their schedules are structured around one-on-one consultations on everything from physical treatment to emotional healing to learning about love, confidence, and self-confidence.
The Dining Room
The specifics vary widely, as there are more than 15 wellness programs, ranging from the expected mainstays of tension management and detoxification to offerings aimed at addressing topical issues such as sleep deprivation, infertility, menopause, and what is delicately called male hormone balance, all of which, they say, We have crises because “we have separated ourselves from our herbal way of life. “(A diabetes program is also in Phase R. )
Of course, all of this takes time and the de facto remaining minimum is a full week. Many systems require 14, 21 days, or more. Often, visitors remotely paint longer remains, and Sarkar says Ananda’s framed paintings increase his productivity. They complete a day’s worth of paintings in a few hours.
Of course, it is helpful to have about three hundred more people help them, not only by giving them consultations and administering treatments, but also by cooking, cleaning, and even bleaching the white pajamas that everyone wears during their stay. Taking your hand here to help you prepare to create a health-first way of life,” says Malati Mehrish, Director of Yoga and Meditation. And while there is an individual approach, “we gather knowledge about everyone and try to document our results. “
He continues: “The changes made in recent years create a lovely combination that is perfectly suited to our time. It is the most productive treatment that other people need and need. We create a counter-narrative: there is a place for ancient wisdom in modern life. Even more so in the 2020s.
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