Delhi-based art gallerist and collector, Anu Bajaj, has been working on her fitness game since she was 16. She had tried “every imaginable” exercise to stay fit as a fiddle, even clocking 21 km marathons like it was a walk in the park. But by the time she hit her 40s, the long runs began to take a toll on her knees. She lacked “proper guidance” on muscle training and nutrition required to build strength for running.
In another stage of life, when she embraced the joy of motherhood on one hand, it again came with a setback on her body. “I had very bad stretch marks during pregnancy. Worried, when I enquired, the doctor replied dryly that ‘it happens’. While I am in awe of the woman and her body, how it adapts and changes through many stages of life, we don’t really have anybody who can guide us or lend an ear. Our bodies want to talk…”, tells the 56-year-old, sipping a chia-seeds-based chocolate smoothie when we met her at her newly opened woman-only wellness club, Evolve, at Delhi-NCR’s luxury shopping destination, Dhan Mill.
During another difficult phase in life, 10 years back, Bajaj’s body showed signs of distress with skin problems. “I developed urticaria, a burning skin condition, where eruptions appear and subside on the skin. Doctors suggested Allegra, which only suppressed the symptoms temporarily. And at a point, I went on to take two Allegra’s, which was not advisable. This went on for a month until I was left miserable as the eruptions would not go! I wondered that I have been a healthy person all my life, eaten right, done exercise, then how can it happen?” she told me. Reading You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay turned out to be a real lightbulb moment for her. The book, which explores how physical ailments often have a psychological connection, made the penny drop; those eruptions were her body’s response to stress that she had been undergoing due to her parents’ loss, a gap of 8 months. “My body was not able to mourn properly. The accumulated stress eventually surfaced on the skin,” she says.
Borrowing from such lived experiences, Bajaj felt a long-standing gap in the wellness industry. While women make up the majority of wellness consumers, very few wellness zones are actually built around their bodies, hormonal cycles, mental load, or lived experiences. It led her to open Evolve, a 6,000-square-foot wellness club for women by women. Designed by Amith Chhabra of Studio, and co-founded with her entrepreneur son, Shivam Bajaj, the wellness club is built to facilitate the natural rhythm of a woman’s body, factoring in various stages, age, requirements, and needs.
Care To Caregivers
“Women often carry the invisible labour of caregiving for families, careers and communities, leaving little room to prioritise their own health. Our bodies go through so many life phases and transitions. It’s not easy for us to navigate them all alone. We end up asking our friends and family for advice or go down the internet rabbit hole for answers. But most advice available online is generic. I wanted to create a space that offers personalised guidance for women at every stage of life,” she tells me during our walk-through of the calming sanctuary. “When I was menopausal, I was going through everything from hot flashes to sleepless nights. I even pushed myself in the gym, putting on weight. But doing excruciating exercises made it worse. What healed me was spending time in nature, waking up early, journaling, listening to music and my body’s needs.”
Built on the same idea of meeting every woman’s individual needs, the club shatters the one-size-fits-all approach. That makes it feel more like a friend than a wellness centre. For instance, when I entered their yoga room while on menstruation, I was suggested to do restful poses. I had severe cramps the night before and had to take medicine before my tour of the space. But sitting quietly in their yoga room under an expert-led session and doing pain-relieving Supta baddakon and Paschimottanasana felt like a restful spell.
In the end, the calming ‘Om’ chants calmed the nervous system after a night of intense pain. The wellness centre’s other rooms offer pilates, strength training, physiotherapy, infrared sauna, red light therapy, sound healing, spa, and personalised nutrition plans. We also grabbed a chia-seeds haldi smoothie at the club’s Cafe Subko as a post-workout healthy offering amongst the choicest selection of herbal teas, juices and post-exertion recovery drinks.
No Chase for Wellness Trends
Modern life hands women a mixed bag of challenges. Some wrestle with PCOS, burnout, or infertility; others end up juggling hormonal swings and stress due to lifestyle habits, demanding workdays, poor diets, or simply running the body into the ground without real recovery time. When Bajaj was bothered by her own health problems, she followed nature’s advice: going to wellness retreats for holistic wellbeing.
“Two retreats that stayed with me over the years are Chiva-Som in Hua Hin, Thailand, and the Jindal Naturecure Institute in India. At Chiva-Som, what stood out was how thoughtfully movement was built into the day with sessions like aqua fitness, pilates, yoga, strength training and time at the gym. Everything was available in one place. One important insight I gained there was about nourishment. The team explained that I had been under-eating, which had slowed my metabolism, and they guided me towards a structured 1200-calorie plan with transparent calorie references for every dish. In India, I return almost every year to the Jindal Naturecure Institute, where the approach is rooted in naturopathy and detox through simple food and treatments. These experiences shaped my belief that detox and wellness should not be occasional retreats, but practices integrated into everyday life.”
Bajaj also went on to complete a 200-hour Hatha Yoga Teacher Training, followed by another 200-hour Hatha and Ashtanga Yoga TTC. Besides yoga, self-healing habits like affirmations and gratitude centred her.
With her approach and philosophy centred on restoring balance to a woman’s life in today’s breakneck world, Evolve took shape as a holistic wellness club that’s trend-averse. “The Internet is going crazy with wellness trends like cryotherapy, cold plunges, IV drips, and Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). But we don’t want to chase any fads. We don’t want to go into biohacking or that longevity space. We are here to align our bodies with nature. Our programs follow principles like circadian rhythm, reducing chemical exposure, and using natural healing methods like Ayurvedic care,” she says.
As we stepped out of this urban retreat, the cramps had abated. Was it just yoga, or a community of women rooting for one another’s health? I left with a lingering thought…
