'I WANT PEOPLE TO START YOUNG'

Opening a gym within a university campus has been a first and fitpreneur Anuja Shah strives to encourage and inspire the young to prioritise fitness and wellbeing in their daily course

- Anurita Rathore Jadeja

At 40, when one decides to prioritise fitness, it doesn't seem very unusual. Better late than never, is what you reason and tell yourself, each time you come across someone who hits the gym just when those muscles need the extra nudge or the necessary push to build better and get fitter. So, what is unusual when Anuja Shah, armed with a degree in law, a fitness enthusiast by "heart, body and mind", follows her passion to not just focus on her own exercise but set up a gymnasium that is one among the many to mushroom around the city? Aiming for the young to be aware of the benefits of staying fit, women recognising the need to prioritise their own wellbeing along with working towards sound family health and the importance of starting young than when the body calls for it, opening a fully functional gym within a university premise makes her enterprise unusually interesting.

Marriage at 20, law at 30, hit by a 'fit wave' at 40

Having a lawyer father fuelled the initial desire to pursue Law (when elder daughter was nine), followed by two years of practice, after which Anuja conceived and had her twins. With inclination for sports, and being a national badminton player in school, "I was always inclined to fitness and knew there's no alternative to feeling good by staying fit".