Himalayan healing

sanjaytanya

Published on Apr 5, 2003

India’s first health spa is a great escape.

Ananda-in-the-Himalayas has been called India’s first holistic health and destination spa. Conde Naste Traveller recently named it “One of the Top 10 Overseas Destination Spas” and Tatler Travel called it “One of the Top 10 Best Spa Escapes”.

While spas are just catching on in India, this spa is one of a kind. Its name “Ananda” means “Peace and Happiness”, and is a real haven for today’s over-stressed and under-cared-for bodies and souls.

Owner Ashok Khanna calls it a “health and restorative spa” where the mental health is as important as the physical well-being. He visited various spas around the world before he conceived and designed Ananda over a period of four years.

The difference of Ananda lies in its cultural specificity. For Ashok, it is not any spa – it is a holistic “Indian” spa in every sense of the word.

It is located in the foothills of the Himalayas at the town of Rishikesh where the holy Ganga River flows and where the concepts of yoga and Ayurveda first started.

A stay in Ananda is in many ways a physical and symbolical journey. This double-layered principle lies at the heart of the Ananda philosophy. In many ways it is a philosophy that is uninhibitedly Indian in concept, texture and methodology.

One wakes up to a session of yoga in the open-air music pavilion. The fresh air, soothing music and gentle breathing exercises are intoxicating. Breakfast is carrot-celery juice, a light roti, yoghurt and tea. Then comes a session of pranayama, where instructor Rishi explains the magical nuances of breath control.

Lunch consists of brown rice, salads, spinach-potato soup and dinner of Thai fried rice, chicken curry and dessert. At every meal the ingredients are balanced to suit one’s dosas or body-constituency.

The spa encourages vegetarian food but leaves the choice to the client. The vegetables are organic, oils light and the meals impeccably planned.

It’s a well-orchestrated round of food, massage and exercise. Most interesting are the explanations linking the physical, mental and emotional well-being of the body.

Ananda’s technique is to “treat” and “cure” you while you are on holiday. You get healthy while you’re being pampered. Therein lies the magic. Thus the massage becomes as much an uplifting experience as a therapeutic and health remedy.

On my first day I splash in a bath of milk, honey and rose petals, leaving my skin pink and glowing. I feel like Cleopatra.

The feeling is reinforced upon entering the luxurious 1,950-square-metre spa for consultation and a “restorative” therapy. An Ayurvedic doctor first gives a questionnaire that asks me everything from my hobbies and dreams to my culinary tastes and sexual appetite. The answers help to decipher my body-type.

There are three types – vaatha, kappa or pitha. I am the kappa type and for the next three days that’s how they refer to me – in the dining room, spa, and yoga pavilion. I am fed, massaged, exercised in the kappa style.

For my restorative abhyanga massage, the two masseurs start with an interesting ritual: they sing a holy chant and light a symbolic lamp. Then a herbal powder, rasnathichurnam, is dabbed on my head. I’m told it’s a preventive for colds and coughs.

Next, a mixture of sesame and sheerabella oils (which I’m told are right for my body-type) are kneaded and massaged into my body by two masseurs from Kerala. They ensure that every sore joint in my body is ironed out.

Next comes the head. Coconut oil is poured over my head in a long, thin stream from a pot with a hole bored in it. This is the shirodara treatment. The oil is massaged lovingly into my scalp and I’m in a near-soporific state. A refreshing bath and shower follows with scented herbal soap and shampoo. Everyone who is pampered like me can easily become a very sleepy Cleopatra by now.

The spa has a variety of Eastern and Western massages, which are carried out by local and foreign staff who all go through an intensive training course at Ananda’s Spa institute. What they all have in common is an understanding of the doshas (imbalances) of the body and the mantras (holy recitations) of the soul.

I have a foot massage in a hot-and-cold Kneipp hydrotherapy pool where I wade through unique pebbles picked up from the Ganga, in varying sizes and shapes. During the treatment, tea is served in copper glasses because copper strengthens the body constituency.

My three-day Ananda Sanjeevini programme is refreshing, restorative and rejuvenating. I now understand why many celebrities flock to it from around the world.

Bill Gates’ wife is a regular. Writer Frederick Forsyth stayed two weeks and snapped out of his smoking addiction.

My stay at Ananda was total nourishment for my restless body and mind. Bliss for three days, peace for hereafter. They did not call India’s first health spa Ananda for nothing.

For more details, check out www.anandaspa.com.

Lekha J Shankar

The Nation

archits

wow ...can we also do a review on this spa