Eating For Wellness: This Pune Sanctuary Is A Gamechanger
Image Credit: All images sourced from Swastik Wellbeing

In a world where the word “detox” is thrown around casually in conversations and social media feeds daily, do we really know what eating for holistic wellness truly means? At a time when indulging in your deepest, darkest cravings and desires can be facilitated with just one click, can we actually ever listen to our body, mind and soul’s real needs? If you, like this author, sometimes wonder about these basic questions, then Swastik, a luxury wellbeing sanctuary near Pune, could offer you the right path to finding the answers.  

To be fair, wellness retreats are not new to India as a concept. From places that offer courses in yoga and meditation to those that you can visit for a so-called detox over a weekend, there is no dearth of wellness retreats in the nation now. But what sets Swastik Wellbeing, founded by Dr Nitin Nyati through the Nyati Foundation, apart is its truly holistic approach that focuses on not one but five dimensions of life: health, wealth, love, bliss and spirituality.  

“Love, bliss and spirituality are the most neglected emotions where wellness retreats are concerned,” says Anushree Nyati, the Director of Swastik Wellbeing, while highlighting what makes the Swastik experience a gamechanger. “We often confuse the purpose of the body and the soul. They are separate and should be treated as such.” She explains that a stay at Swastik therefore not only offers guests a chance to get ayurvedic consultations and treatments at their Ayu Vihar, but also offers nourishment to the mind and soul through guided programs at Dhyan and Utsav Vihars, conversations with various Masters in their fields, incredible plant-based meals at their restaurant Rasa, and a true digital detox at their restful, cave-like guhas in Sukh Vihar. 

Blending With Nature And Still Standing Apart 

Located near Khadakvasala Dam near Pune, Swastik was launched on November 11, 2024. When you enter the sprawling retreat, you are immediately greeted with ‘Atma Naman’, a salutation that every sevak greets seekers with. If a sense of peace doesn’t wrap you up immediately, the simple, cleansing rituals when you check in absolutely will: bell and gong vibrations, a small aarti, a glass of soothing, floral drink and an energising snack help you acclimatise to the ways of this sanctuary. 

Enter the Sukh Vihar area and you will feel like you have entered Hobbiton right out of JRR Tolkien’s pages. The “rooms” are actually guhas, quite like Hobbit-holes, and are rounded spaces rather than edgy, box-like hotel rooms. Manish Banker, the Chief Architect of Swastik, designed this space specifically to utilise the natural, hilly landscape of Pune’s Peacock Valley while giving seekers a comforting experience that is reminiscent of a mother’s womb.  

There is no notion of room service in terms of food—you will certainly not get snacks or meals on order here because that defeats the purpose of this retreat—but you will certainly be embraced into a sense of absolute peace with healing tonics, foot massages and more. The idea is simple: food is meant to heal you as a part of this holistic journey, not cater to your every indulgent whim. There is purpose behind this design, and it unravels when you head to Rasa for your fixed meals of the day. 

Clean, Plant-Based And Nourishing: A Unique Approach To Food 

“The food at Swastik is about abundance and nourishment,” Anushree Nyati says. Now, you might think there is nothing abundant about having three fixed meals in a day, but that’s where the unique approach to “food as medicine” by Arvind Joshi, Executive Chef at Swastik, comes into play. The idea is not to deprive you of great dining options but to craft each meal in such a way that it improves satiety without compromising on the health factor. Here’s how. 

To start off with, all meals at Rasa are served during fixed timings. An hour each for breakfast, lunch and dinner throughout the day means that the meals are a part of your day and not the sole purpose of it. Each of these meals has a fresh, five-course set menu. For each course, you can choose among at least two options, an Indian and a global cuisine dish. All the meals are plant-based, balanced and simple—and yet, they are plated with such thoughtfulness that you feel you are being treated to a world-class meal. Most importantly, there no caffeine served in the form of tea or coffee, and everything is plant-based. 

And of course, the restaurant certainly maintains standards that are quite akin to that of world-class restaurants. “In the food we serve, there's no sugar, no maida, nothing processed, nothing old or stale,” Anushree Nyati explains. “The restaurant kitchen has no fryers, no walk-in freezer and is always clean. We want to offer a food experience that flows well into the rest of your day packed with exercise, meditation, therapies and conversations. And what’s more, every seeker here gets to experience a lunch with a Master so that you feed your soul and body at the same time.” 

Not Sattvik, But Simply Sophisticated And Science-Based 

What adds to the uniqueness of the food experience at Swastik is Chef Arvind Joshi’s take on how it melds into the holistic wellness approach here. “The best food combination in the world is carbs and fat,” the young chef from Rishikesh (a city known for its spiritual connections) says. “That is the solution to cravings, and that's why people gravitate towards pizza, biryani, etc. But I feel there's a clean way of doing it. That's what we do here at Swastik's restaurant, Rasa.” 

He further explains that though the food at Swastik gives you a feeling of being sattvik, it is not so in the traditional sense. “We use onions and garlic if and where it is needed, because these plant-based ingredients are also nutrient dense,” he explains. “So, our food is about simplicity of flavours and the science behind food, the nutritional aspect. We do minimum interference with the plant-based ingredients, except in the case of desserts sometimes. And we serve all our food within three hours of cooking. Even the pickled elements we make are fresh. This is a luxury property, so money is not a concern, but quality certainly is.”  

Chef Arvind Joshi turned vegetarian five years back as a part of his own efforts to stay healthy, but as a person brought up as a non-vegetarian from Uttarakhand, he knows well how to appeal to the taste buds of meat-eating guests at Swastik without compromising a bit on the philosophy of the property. Though the meals are portion controlled, and the menus are set, every savoury dish is umami and every dessert is mildly sweet due to the natural ingredients used. Yes, satiety is achieved with every bite. 

Why You Need To Experience The Food At Swastik 

This is the reason why everyone eating at the restaurant during this author’s stay, even vegetarians, kept commenting that they've never tasted food like this before. This could also be because most Indians still feel sattvik food is meant for fasts only, and those meals are often dominated by heavy dishes like kuttu puris and sabudana vadas. Then there's all the expectation that modern Indian restaurants serving sattvik or healthy food have built. Most of these places have complicated menus and the dishes are often overladen with too many ingredients and flavours.  

Eating at Swastik, you will forget all that has come before because the meals here focus on removing unnecessary things from the plate instead of overstuffing them. This is also achieved because of Chef Arvind Joshi’s humble and grounded approach. “We chefs, especially the exceptionally talented ones among us, can often be very ‘loud’ in terms of creating menus and serving up food,” he says. “But quite a few of us often come across experiences that change this pattern. For me, it was meeting a monk once who slowly explained to me that hunger and taste/satisfaction are truly linked. The hungrier you are, the tastier even the simplest foods will appear. She told me to stop trying to overfeed people or fill them to the brim with one dish after the other. At Swastik, I was able to apply this idea.” 

So, in essence, a stay at Swastik does provide an opportunity to connect with yourself, truly, after shedding all the window dressing you might have added along the way. The wellness rituals like halotherapy, ayurvedic consultations on your prakruti and doshas, guided sound and meditation programs go a long way in healing your body and mind, and the food certainly heals your soul. If you are looking for a holistic wellness regimen that makes an impact and stays with you for decades, to be empowered enough to "bloom in abundance", or even a holistic, healthy food experience that will astonish and please you thoroughly, then Swastik Wellbeing is the place to head to. 

Address: Peacock Valley, Kudje, NDA Road, Khadakwasla, Pune-411023, Maharashtra, India. 

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