MUMBAI: For Aryan Zaveri, the thrill of new landscapes and the flavours of faraway kitchens once defined the rhythm of life. For Vrushti Bauva, the road stretched wide, her bike carving a path of adventure. Dhruti Nagda found her beat in pop melodies and rap verses, while Yuti Shah lived through the silver screen, lost in the flicker of a thousand stories. They embraced a world of colour, sound, and spectacle—until they chose silence.
Four young heirs to the city’s business families are setting aside wealth and worldly pleasures to walk the austere path of monkhood. The festival of monkhood in Ghatkopar spans 1.25 lakh square feet, a replica of Udaipur’s storied palaces rises—not for a wedding, but for a farewell. Not to celebrate new unions, but to mark a renunciation.
From the time he was a child, Aryan Zaveri spoke of monkhood as if it were his birthright. He was unwavering, insistent—though he could never quite explain why. “I just knew,” he says now, at 24, his net worth running into hundreds of crores. “And today, I understand. This is the path for anyone seeking to ascend to a higher spiritual plane.”
His father, Zubin Zaveri, watched the conviction grow with each passing year. “He was in seventh grade when he first said he wanted to take diksha,” he recalls. “We told him to finish school first.
Then, after high school, we urged him to get a degree. Later, I tried to tempt him with a Rs 2 crore car, with all the luxuries we could offer. Nothing changed his mind.” Zubin, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur, concedes that no amount of wealth could rival the pull of his son’s calling.
Aryan is not alone. For Vrushti, Dhruti, and Yuti, the decision was just as resolute. “We lived a certain kind of life, until we realised this was our true purpose,” Yuti explains. “And when you believe in something, discomfort ceases to matter,” adds Vrushti. The years of training, the disciplined life, the sermons—they were not burdens, but refinements, shaping them for a journey beyond the material world. “This prepares us to elevate our souls,” Dhruti reflects.
On Thursday morning, the final break from their past will be made in a public declaration: the 5-hour-long Varshi Daan procession. With hands once accustomed to wealth, they will cast away money, jewels, possessions—symbols of a life they now leave behind. “Each of them was born into privilege,” says Ketan Mehta, a coordinator of the event scheduled for February 3-7. “And yet, they have chosen to surrender it all for something greater.” For them, the departure from the material is not a sacrifice. It is an arrival.