There are workdays. And then there are those workdays when your phone starts ringing before your coffee is ready. Your back feels like stone by noon, and come evening, you’re ready to retire and pack your bags and run away into the sunset. That was last Tuesday for me. But somewhere between back-to-back meetings and backlogged emails, I pulled off a near-miracle: one massage and one blow-dry, snuck in like a secret affair, at Shangri-La Eros New Delhi’s new Wellness Club.
Unveiled in early June this year, it lavishly sprawls across 27,000 sq ft in leafy Lutyens’ Delhi. Tucked underground, the Wellness club and spa feels like it belongs to a different, quieter and slower world. One that is deliberately out of sync with the city. It sheds all theatrics for a palette of beige and sand, softened by warm lighting and quiet.
Now, I’ll be honest. I don’t usually enjoy massages. I find them mildly ticklish, slightly awkward, and mostly boring. I spend half the time calculating how many emails I could’ve answered instead. But this time was different. The therapist skipped the generic full-body script and focused exactly where I needed it: my neck, shoulders and upper back. Her touch was soft, almost cloud-like, but firm and knowing enough that she instinctively knew which areas held tension. Of course, I looked at my phone multiple times. Emails. Messages. A mini-crisis or two. I finally apologised for the distraction. She smiled and said, “It’s okay, work is important.” No passive-aggressive smiles (or sighs).
