Fit Together

In the daily lives of marketing consultant DANEESH DAVAR and lawyer-turned-fitness expert SOHRAB KHUSHRUSHAHI, food and fitness collide and co-exist

- Priyanka Khanna

Believe it or not, but banoffee pie, that sticky, creamy, buttery, rich English dessert, plays the buffer between the opposing ideologies that govern marketing consultant 34-year-old Daneesh Davar and her 35-year-old lawyer-turned fitness trainer husband Sohrab Khushrushahi’s lives. The pie in question—the signature dessert of Davar’s mother Zarine—also led the former to pursue her love for food and launch a homegrown confectionery brand, Mama Z’s, that celebrates her mum’s baking skills. Khushrushahi, on the other hand, is known for his love for fitness, but the pie remains his Achilles heel. When you meet this husband-wife duo, they stay true to their distinct selves—Khushrushahi is calm and composed, while Davar is the more extroverted of the two; her closest friends (full disclosure: I’m one of them) often tease her on her proclivity towards the dramatic.

EASY AS PIE

“My mum’s food is so good, I just felt the world needed to taste a bit of her talent,” says Davar, who also consults for fields as diverse as real estate and fashion. Following the birth of her son, when friends and family would visit, they would often ask for a slice of the famed pie. “I looked across at my mum one day and said we should make this a business,” says Davar. That epiphany led to Mama Z’s, a from home catering service offered on Mumbai-based app Scootsy, which has gained quite the following in the city especially for their pies. At about the same time, Khushrushahi decided to seriously consider a career in fitness.