Ananda’s allure lies in its location. It’s in the Himalayas, not in a hill station trampled upon by tourists, but near a quaint town that begins to shut down at sunset. A town you wouldn’t hear of until you are headed for Ananda: Narendra Nagar.
The town came into existence about a century ago after the maharaja of Tehri Garhwal, finding the location picturesque, built a palace there. The palace gave him an aerial view of the Ganga, flowing through the plains of Rishikesh. Today, the palace is home to the destination spa, formally known as Ananda In The Himalayas. Guests are welcomed — with a garland of rudraksha — in the same portico where visiting dignitaries were once received by the royal family.
My visit began with the realisation of a terrible mistake I had made. I had overlooked an email from Ananda that had asked for my shirt size and had said that since their guests liked to travel light, they were provided with sets of kurta and pyjamas throughout their stay. Whereas my suitcase had weighed 13 kg at the airport, stuffed with clothes for all occasions: yoga, therapies, mealtimes, socialising, outings.
Little did I know that for much of my seven days there — I had accepted the invitation for a week-long detox programme — I was going to wear either disposal boxers or a flimsy loincloth. Day One also presented a rude shock. In the gym of the spa, a machine analysing one’s body composition told me that I was overweight by 15 kg, my lower body wasn’t as well-built as my upper body, my right arm was weaker than my left arm, and so forth. Most disturbingly, in the printout that the machine had spat out, four of the five circles that measured visceral fat were coloured in black.
And so I decided to surrender myself to Ananda — to the teachers and the therapists — instead of merely checking out its detox programme, so that I could write about it. Soon, I could feel the changes: spirits lifting, ego melting, the fat burning.
Each morning, I would be up at five — a sin to sleep until late, in a place as pretty as this — and sip a ginger-lemon drink sitting on the verandah, watching the mountains and listening to the birds. After that there would be a yoga class, sometimes one-on-one and sometimes common.
The common sessions were easy to deal with: there were people more out of shape than me; it was the one-on-one instruction that punctured pride, especially when the lungs couldn’t prolong one ‘Om’ chant beyond 10 seconds, whereas the teacher’s ‘Om’ resonated for more than 20; or when the teacher told me, very politely: ‘Lose your abdominal fat; everything else will fall into place.’
Yoga sessions would be followed by therapies — mostly Ayurveda-prescribed massages and treatments for detox. One often spent the best part of the day in the spa, constantly being led in and out of sweet-smelling rooms that saw your body being liberated of some more toxins. It was in one of these rooms that I was subjected, for the first time in my life, to a procedure called sneha basti — oil enema.
When not in the spa or in my room, I would walk around the property. The maharaja’s library is located in a wing of the palace that serves as the reception of Ananda — a 45-degree climb from the rest of Ananda that includes the spa, the residential block and the dining hall. The climb came with its rewards. On one occasion, I found myself closely following a peacock that was on its way up as well: its tail scraped the concrete path like a bride’s gown.
The maharaja’s cosy study-cum-library had a fireplace as well as an air-conditioner — a reminder that the world is only getting hotter. Another place worth spending time in was the Sunset Point, the hilltop in the palace premises from where you could watch the sun go down at its leisurely pace, with a bagpiper playing in the background.
I had two outings during my week-long stay at Ananda. One evening, I was driven to Rishikesh, where I attended the Ganga Aarti after taking a dip in the icy waters of the river. The trip rekindled fond memories from nine years ago, when I spent a week in Rishikesh to attend the International Yoga Festival. And early one morning, I was a part of the group that went on a trek to Kunjapuri temple, located 500 metres higher than the palace: painful but exhilarating.
Meanwhile, I had been eating like a pauper. I was on a pitta diet (pitta being one of the three body types in Ayurveda, the other two being vata and kapha ). What looked like an appetiser was often the main course. But my body got used to the reduced intake of food in no time. On the other hand, my intake of water had gone up. I felt lighter than ever.
The thing with a place like Ananda is that there is so much one can do, and at the same time so much to stand and stare, that time melts like the morning mist. I had barely got used to the rhythm of a new life, when my stay came to an end. On the last day, when I presented myself at the gym for body-composition analysis, I found that I had lost two kg and that my visceral fat measured three-and-a-half, instead of four, black circles. Which meant if I had spent a month there, I would have lost 8 kg and my visceral fat would be represented by only two black circles. Which also meant that in two months, I would have lost 16 kg and completely rid myself of visceral fat.
One cannot stay on in Ananda forever, but one can bring the spirit of Ananda home, and perhaps return there annually for a week — to stay inspired for the rest of the year.
( To know about packages offered by Ananda In The Himalayas, visit www.anandaspa.com)
