NEW DELHI: The Capital is all set to witness the Soul Project, a yoga and wellness festival with the aim of gathering like-minded people to motivate them to make healthy choices and adopt conscious living.
Behind the project is Mehak Chaudhry, who worked as a lawyer and Company Secretary for three years, before deciding to pursue the things that she loved the most: fitness, music and travel.
For Chaudhry, following all three of her passions together was no easy feat. Seeing no other way of pursuing them altogether, she finally formed the Soul Project.
Chaudhry, tells us that the festival will feature more than 25 classes and workshops with 20-plus instructors. “While we are calling it a festival, for me, it is more of wellness experience.
"Also, the weather right now is perfect for an outdoor programme and Horizon Plaza is where the event has multiple workshops around wellness, yoga and meditation taking place,” says Chaudhry.
The workshops will be taken by India’s top yogis and fitness trainers like Nidhi Mohan, Malini Ramani, Sapna, Ira Yoga, Sunaina Rekhi, Mihir Jogh, Pradeep Mehta, Kavita Das, Ekta Sabil, Dev Om, and Ankita Gulati, to name a few.
A couple of the instructors have been organically attached to the festival as Chaudhry knew them personally from before.
However, she is cautious about not scaring people with technical terms like Hatha, Vinyasa and Iyengar yoga and instead opting to focus on problems that people face daily.
“There is a guy flying all the way from Mumbai and taking a session on posture correction because half of the problems and injuries happen because we don’t sit properly. There is another workshop focusing on lower back problems, a Sivananda yoga, which is a spine technique. There are experts from across India who use traditional forms of yoga while mixing them with the contemporary form, so we have people like Christopher Harrison who will be teaching antigravity yoga,” adds Chaudhry.
There will also be workshops on meditation and sound healing. While the festival will definitely attract fitness enthusiasts, Chaudhry is making sure that it is interesting for those who are less physically inclined.
“We have added healthy vegan food to the festival, so they hopefully will have something to take back home as well. We will have someone selling fresh farm produce, so the pop-ups will be interactive, and make sure there is some learning at every level.”
The festival that is on a Sunday, starts early in the morning, and there is a good reason behind it. “Being a mother of two, I wanted to keep kids at the center of the festival.
For children, the foundations of these practices can be started at a young age.
So, along with yoga and meditation, we also have boulder climbing along with music and two live performances with the festival ending with the band Prem Joshua, who are pioneers of a crossover sound that is nestled at the cusp of Eastern tradition and Western innovation.”
After dedicating the last 10 years of her life to creatively bring up her children and strengthening her own Hatha yoga practice, Chaudhry is using her expertise in organising events to create an amalgamation of music, dance, yoga and travel, all of which have culminated in The Soul Project.
On: February 23, 8:00am-7:00pm
At: Horizon Plaza, DLF5, Golf Course Road, Gurugram