Not long ago, on a hike to the Kunjapuri Temple in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas, retreat participants came upon a view of Rishikesh. Their guide what the city is famous for. “The Beatles,” I offered, knowing that Rishikesh is where the musicians went to meditate with the Maharishi in the 1960s.
This was not wrong, but the guide was looking for more relevant answer: Rishikesh is said to be the birthplace of yoga, where Patanjali wrote his Sutras more than 2,000 years ago.
Now it’s the landmark city for another kind of spiritual seekers—maybe not rock stars but often high-profile, and certainly successful—who travel in search of life change. Their destination is Ananda in the Himalayas, a luxury wellness resort that regularly scoops up awards.
Like other retreats along the Ganges River, Ananda takes yoga, Ayurvedic medicine and Vedanta (Hindu philosophy) as its main pillars. Unlike those other places, it does so in a natural setting that’s transcendent, with luxurious facilities to match. The crown jewel of the 100-acre estate is the palace built for Maharaja Narenda Shah in 1895.
Now the palace is where guests are welcomed to the estate—with marigold garlands and ceremonial blessings—and it sets the tone for the experience to follow. This mostly unfolds in a cluster of buildings below the palace, which were built around the year 2000.
They include a restaurant with a grand dining room indoors and a lovely shaded terrace, a 25,000-square-foot spa with 24 treatment rooms and a state-of-the-art gym, and a building with most of the 70 guest rooms. (The exception is one historic charmer in the old palace.) Although these are ready for their planned refresh, they have a grandeur of space and comfort, plus private balconies with views of the palace or the valleys below. That glorious nature, which is almost always in sight, remains central to the experience.
“It’s more than two decades since we first started out, with only a Palace at the edge of time, surrounded by acres of wild lantana and natural beauty. Back then, all I had was a dream—[a] picture of what I wanted to achieve and where I wanted to be,” says a statement from Ananda founder and managing director Ashok Khanna.
“As the world changed, so did we; but deep within us we have always upheld those beliefs and principles,” it continues. “That was the philosophy [that] brought Ananda in the Himalayas into being. My idea was to bring together the ancient remedies, practices and the deep-rooted wisdom of Indian culture and blend them all with the best of international practices…. This location served as an inspiration to bring alive the wellness destination that I had in mind.”
While the focus remains on yoga and Ayurveda—both of which they consider sciences—it has become more laser-like. Every guest has a long-distance consultation to determine a program when they book, and another, in-person session with an Ayurvedic doctor on arrival. Among other goals, this identifies a guest’s dosha—body type, in Ayurveda, which informs everything from foods served to oils used in spa treatments—and fine-tunes their schedule.
The approach now is “clinical wellness.” says Ankur Verma, the director of wellness operations and training, who emphasizes that the whole staff goes through a lot of the latter. “We have objective ways to measure things.”
From a guest’s perspective, Ananda was a mainstream destination spa along the lines of, say, a Six Senses with its modern creature comforts. In the past decade, it’s grown into a full-on wellness retreat, one that sometimes requires certain sacrifices.
I first visited about 12 years ago when it was at the start of this transition. The general manager at the time pointed out the lower-alcohol wines on the menu (8% or 9%—still potent), meals were abundant, and desserts turned up in bedrooms at turndown.
Now guests who sign up for wellness programs—as most do—are advised to wean themselves off their vices in advance. There’s no sugar, alcohol or caffeine, and the food is almost fully vegetarian. This isn’t only to optimize results during a guest’s stay but to show that healthful eating can be enjoyable.
“Time spent at Ananda should be an investment in changing your lifestyle,” says general manager Aniket Sarkar. He emphasizes that in their vision, “hospitality is enriching the life of a person who is in need,” and adds that almost everyone who comes knows that something can be improved. “Every treatment and every meal is a step in that direction This is a curated environment to break old habits before you create new ones. We want our guests to feel that well-being is sustainable.”
Guests who come for rigorous detox, panchakarma (a comprehensive Ayurvedic rejuvenation) and weight loss programs are put on liquid or highly restricted diets, but generally, the food is light without being overly spartan. There’s plenty of variety, from around India and beyond, with a satisfying spice quotient. I never felt full, but I also never felt hungry.
Everyone is encouraged to take a group or private cooking class, which includes some Ayurvedic principles—what to choose for each dosha, the wonders of ghee—as well as some general clean-eating wisdom like choosing actual vegetables over highly processed faux meat, and tips for making food taste good.
Chef Diwaker Balodi, the director of cuisine, came up through India’s lavish Oberoi resorts, where he cooked with meat and salt and other obvious tools to make food taste good. But it wasn’t hard to go from that to this, he says. “It’s the same cooking techniques. We just have to apply the new knowledge we have here.”
In any case, meals are welcome punctuation in days that combine slowness and rigor, expert guidance and self-discovery. There’s yoga first thing in the morning, and meditation and philosophy talks at the end of the afternoon. Guests are given notebooks full of journaling prompts, and their schedules are woven around private consultations in everything from physiotherapy to emotional healing—learning to love, trust and believe in oneself.
The specifics vary greatly, as there are more than 15 wellness programs, ranging from the expected cornerstones of stress management and detox to offerings to address timely concerns like poor sleep, infertility, menopause and what is delicately called male hormonal balance, all of which, they say, have become crises because “we got separated from our natural way of living.” (A diabetes program is also in the R&D phase, with case studies already showing that holistic management can get people off insulin.)
All of this takes time, of course, and the de facto minimum stay is a full week. Many programs require 14 or 21 days or more. Often guests work remotely during longer stays, and Sarkar says they report that the Ananda framework boosts their productivity. They accomplish a day’s work in a few hours.
Of course, it helps that roughly 300 people are supporting them, not only giving consultations and administering treatments but also simply cooking and cleaning and even laundering the flowy white pajamas that everyone wears during their stay. “We hand-hold you here to help you prepare to create a lifestyle that prioritizes health,” says Malati Mehrish, the head of yoga and meditation. And while there’s always an individual approach, “we’re collecting data on everyone and trying to document our results.”
She continues, “The changes we’ve made in recent years are creating a beautiful blend that’s the right thing for these times. It’s the best of therapies that people want and need. We’re creating a counternarrative: that there’s a place for ancient wisdom in modern life.” Even more so in the 2020s.