THE SIMPLE LIFE

Coaches and fad diets often provide limited access to the elitist world of wellness. Meet Harshvardhan and Subah Saraf, the couple who are making good health more accessible

- MAMTA MODY

A stuffy nose and a Google search all lead up to Harshvardhan and Subah Saraf’s serendipitous meeting in 2018. Living in different cities, the couple had been making their own mark in the wellness industry. Harshvardhan set up Vedary in Mumbai in 2018, the go-to urban destination for holistic wellness solutions. The centre also served as Austria’s famed wellness clinic, Viva Mayr’s Mumbai outpost. While in Gurgaon, Subah had been slowly building up a sizeable digital following through Satvic Movement, a not-for-profit health collective that hosts workshops to educate people about holistic living. The couple met through their family and tied the knot earlier this year.

Harsh and Subah believe in following the sattvic way of living, where some of the guiding principles involve living in alignment with nature and following a plant-based, alkaline diet. “There are some very easy lifestyle changes, like avoiding red chillies in your meal, replacing refined oil with coconut, and eating water-rich foods,” says Subah about the sattvic diet that has been explained in detail in her self-published book Food Book.

Right before the lockdown, we sat down for a sattvic home-cooked meal and chatted about their plans to move to Delhi and work together. A few edited excerpts from our conversation in March...

ELLE: How did the two of you meet?

Subah Saraf: Satvic had been hosting workshops in Delhi and we had a lot of requests to come to Mumbai, but we didn’t have a venue or caterer to host it here. At some point my parents visited Vedary...