Soul to Sole Healing

The global wellbeing industry, now worth more than ₹362.8 lakh crore is getting more extreme, and more corporate. Welcome to the Davos of wellness-an elite gathering to enjoy weekends of 'trauma dancing' and 'guerrilla energy' workshops.

- KATE SPICER

Dr Mark Hyman is on stage. In ankle boots and with a tasselled pendant visible between his low-buttoned shirt, he looks like what he is: a rock god of the wellness circuit. Hyman is a medical doctor turned “ultra-wellness” guru.

Hyman is big on blue zones, those regions of the world where more people thrive into very old age. “What distinguishes the people of Crete,” he says, clicking up a slide of him grinning beside a couple of robust nonagenarians, “is olive oil and they walk a great deal.” Afterwards, I decide not to flag down a buggy to get to my room. Instead, I walk up behind a French lady who is quizzing Hyman about wine. Maybe one glass a day is good?

No, he says. Her disappointment is palpable. “Maybe one a week,” he adds. “But it’s not good for hormones.” This festival is gonna be fun, I think. Hyman is a headliner at this summer’s Harvest Kaplankaya, the “ultimate playground for growth”, “a five-day experience filled with fascinating talks and workshops on how to better nurture ourselves, each other and the planet”, goes the sell. They call it a gathering, an experience; the tourism industry calls it “vacation conferencing”. It’s a wellness festival, basically. Prepare for glowing skin, emotional epiphanies and a righteous desire to change the world. It probably won’t give you a hangover, but you never know.