The Hindu Business Line : Choose the aroma of Nirvana!

DEPRESSED after that important business deal failed to come through? Fatigued after yet another 12-hour stint at work? Or just going through a case of blues for no reason at all? Nirvana will soon be available for souls in anguish at Rs 100-150 for 10 minutes. And if that's not good enough, the icing on the cake is that it will be available in flavours and aromas of your choice!

Mumbaiites can look forward to better times ahead with Mumbai-based businessman B.K. Sharma gearing up to set up a chain of oxygen bars which promise to bring a breath of fresh air, literally, into their lives.

Sharma, who runs businesses manufacturing pollution control equipment, water purification plants and health drinks among other things has tied up with Metito, US, a company with large interests in Oxygen. His gameplan is simple. Over the next few months, Metito India will rope in franchisees, which will invest upwards of Rs 25 lakh, to set up oxygen bars across the country.

The first of these bars will come up in Mumbai, according to Sharma, who said the idea is to make the bars accessible to every possible user segment. On the anvil could be oxygen bars at beauty parlours, fitness centres, doctors clinics and even pubs and discos where smoke and noise pollution is amongst the highest.

All that the customer has to do when he is down and out is walk into this 10x10 oxygen bar to experience the high of his life, said Sharma.

And yes, if he is the kind who is fussy, he can opt for Nirvana in a flavour of his choice — oxygen in rose, orange, cherry or even pina colada flavour! "A 10-15 minute stint at the oxygen bar will rejuvenate and relax the user and make him ready to take on the world afresh," avers Sharma, who points out that the air that people breathe today in metros has oxygen content of only 20-21 per cent. "It has huge potential in India, especially in cities where life is very stressful today and the environment itself is full of potential".

In the US, oxygen bars is a billion dollar business with large chains of them operating across the length and breadth of the country. Sharma hopes to set up at least 10 such oxygen bars in the next six months beginning Mumbai where he will initially start of in upscale locations, then move on to Pune and Nashik. The bars will simultaneously be rolled out in Delhi too, he said.

Sharma's only competition in the business will come from former editor-turned-media entrepreneur Pritish Nandy whose Moksha fitness club has Mumbai's only oxygen bar where the hip and happening arrive regularly to tank up on their oxygen for a hefty price.

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