Malaika Arora's Yoga Bet: Diva Yoga and the Sarva Deal

Malaika Arora is described in the media as a fitness icon, and her Wikipedia biography notes that she became a vegan in 2020. But the most concrete part of her wellness story is a business one: a women-only yoga studio and a stake in a yoga chain. This piece sets out what was reported and what remains unclear.

The studio

On 12 October 2018 Arora launched Diva Yoga, a premium yoga studio exclusively for women, in association with Zorba Yoga. The first studio opened on Hill Road in Bandra West, Mumbai, according to a press release carried by Mumbai News Express. She was named co-founder in that statement.

The pitch was about identity as much as exercise. Arora said in the release that she believes "there is a Diva within all of us" and that it is sometimes a little challenging to find her. The studio offered a 12 Steps programme designed by experts, plus a wellness programme built around awareness, mindfulness and healing. It also had a room called the Sacred Space, with affirmations on the walls such as Believe, Aspire and Glow. The release said Diva Yoga planned to open 11 more studios across Mumbai in the following 12 months.

The bigger company

Diva Yoga sat inside a larger business. VCCircle reported that Zorba, launched in 2013 by Sarvesh Shashi, ran a chain of 91 open or under-construction studios under the Sarva brand, offering yoga and Zumba courses and alternative healing therapies. It said the company launched Diva Yoga in association with Arora in October 2018 and had partnered with the budget hotel chain OYO to set up 500 wellness studios across select OYO Townhouses.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Arora described how the deal came about. She said she met Sarvesh by chance, he told her what the team had in mind, and she agreed because it was "so up my street". She decided the studios should be mainly for women. She also made a distinction that matters in celebrity business: she did not want to just be the face of the brand, because that "would be just another endorsement". She invested in the Sarva parent company, which The Telegraph said counted Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez among its investors. Business Standard, reporting that Sarva was gearing up for an institutional funding round in 2019, said celebrities such as Kareena Kapoor Khan, Alia Bhatt and Amrita Arora were frequent visitors to the studios.

What she says about yoga

Her stated view is straightforward. In a quote carried by Business Standard, she said yoga is "a way of life that motivates you, grounds you, tones you mentally and physically, makes you mindful and invokes a feeling of happiness". She added that she and Shashi hoped to inspire people to adopt a healthy and happy lifestyle, and hinted at plans in the digital space.

Why the model matters

Many celebrity wellness deals are licence-and-endorse arrangements. This one, as described in the reports, mixed an endorsement with an investment and a co-founder title. That structure aligns the face of the brand with the business result, though it does not guarantee either. The reports also describe the first studio as a flagship that needed teething problems ironed out before expansion.

What we could not confirm

All of the details above come from 2018 and 2019 reports, and most of them rest on statements issued by the company or by Arora. We did not find independent figures on the number of Diva Yoga studios that opened, on membership, or on how much she invested. We also could not confirm whether the 11 planned studios were opened or whether the OYO partnership went ahead as announced.

Sources

*Cover photo: Verghese TK, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).*