Transcript of a YouTube podcast episode featuring Puneet Nanda interviewing Kirti Tewani about her background and Ayurvedic practice. Kirti introduces herself as an Ayurvedic therapist and former makeup artist, explains core Ayurveda concepts (meaning of ‘Ayurveda’, the five elements, and the three doshas: vata, pitta, kapha), and discusses practical implications such as lifestyle, exercise timing, and partial reversal of premature graying. The conversation mixes personal anecdotes, social-media background, and practical tips for balancing doshas.
Chapters
Good to have you. Keerthi. Today, Keerthi Tiwani. She has been a voice on TikTok, on Instagram and other social medias talking about Ayurveda and the benefits of Ayurveda. She does a lot of DIYs. She is based out of New York or Connecticut. I met her personally on Internet and I was very impressed with her knowledge. Apart from everything else. The real thing that incited me to her was her video that went viral on TikTok about oil pulling. And that's how I actually reached out to her. And after years of working together, now and I felt like we need to do a podcast together. So thank you and welcome. Keerti, please give our audience a 60 second intro of yourself, please.
Thank you. Should I say Uncle Puneet? Should I say Dr. Nanda?
No, no, no, no, no, Uncle. Let's keep it puneet.
Thank you Dr. Nanda for having me. And it's to be on your podcast. I know it's been almost two years I have known you. I remember it was about December two years ago where you reached out to me. My name is Kirti. I'm an Ayurvedic therapist. I am also a makeup artist with over 15 years of experience. And the reason I dwelled into the world of Ayurveda is my mom and my kids. My mom, because I've seen her heal her entire life using the Vedic practices, Yoga and Ayurveda. And my kids because, you know, as much as I appreciate the robust technology and research that we have access to right now, I do want a mix of holistic practices and modern science and raise my kids with a balance.
Beautiful. Thank you so much for your introduction. So Kirti, we were talking, you told me you are from Spain. Can you give me a 30 second intro how you came from Spain to US and how did you get into Ayurveda?
I came to us. I actually got married to a New Yorker, a Yankee, about 13 years ago. A little over 13 years ago. And that's how I moved to United States in New York. And I got into Ayurveda during the pandemic because there was so much information around health and it was very hard to depict what is right and what is not. So I actually jumped and started my own Ayurvedic supplement brand. And when I was trying to create videos around it, people would ask me more questions and that's how I started learning and teaching Ayurveda myself.
And your mom is Ayurvedic practitioner and she actually Runs a school for Ayurveda in Spain. Right. And you speak Spanish, I'm sure.
Yes, I do speak. I am that brown girl who speaks fluent Spanish and it comes out really handy sometimes.
Beautiful. I would love to speak that. Let's dive into some of the questions I think our audience would be very eager to know from your experience. You are the voice and face of most of my audience. 35, 38 year old girl that is looking to raising kids, that is looking to ensure that she is not just drug dependent and that is also doing a lot of preventative work that is also using holistic methodologies to cure herself, her family, her kids and take care of all of them, work and make a living as well. So let us talk about what is dosha.
Could we reverse it a little bit and go on what is Ayurveda first? Because I'm not sure.
Oh, that would be great. Why don't you start with what is Ayurveda?
So in the most simple and basic words, ayur means life and veda means knowledge. So now we're combining the life and knowledge together. So it's this vast system of knowledge that has existed for about 5,000 and now the claim is over 6,000 years now. So it's based on the concept of five elements, fire, water, ether, air and earth, which we are most familiar with watching TVs. It's, it's where we are surrounded. We are surrounded by these five elements all day, every day. And now these five elements are subdivided into these doshas that every time someone talks about Ayurveda the word comes about what is your dosha? And the subdivision is the combination of air and ether. Element is a vata. The combination of fire and water element is pitta and the combination of water and earth is kapha. So if you think a little bit deeper, what are the properties of air and ether? It's very empty, it's very spacious. So vata is literally the air element. And when we talk about fire and water, this speed, it's fierce, it's fire, it's the heat. So the element of heat is described as pitta and kapha is water in earth. So when we think of earth, the first thing we think about is grounding. So kapha they say in generally is very grounded, it's the element of being, steady, stillness. And that's how we divide vata, pitta and kapha. Now how do they impact our life? And if you think in a broader spectrum, we all have all three doshas in us, right? But One or two of the dosha is always predominant, is always dominating your life. So this premature gray hair in Ayurveda is excess heat in the body, right? That's what we say. It's the fire. So I've always been a very active person. I actually ran a few marathons and I used to do these marathons at a wrong time. I used to train at a wrong time when the sun was at its highest peak, you know, and that's what caused a lot of imbalances in my body. And it has taken me a long journey to kind of understand how to balance and how to do these workouts, but how to do them at a good time. So they're actually beneficial for my body. So just in my case, this premature gray hair, which is technically an imbalance, happened because of these intensive workouts that I did in the pitta time. It's in the hottest, more heated and aggravated time of the day.
Do you think we can reverse it now that you know that you got white hair pitta, do you think at your age, which is a ripe age where you don't have to lose your hair or get them white? What do you think? Can you reverse it with Ayurveda?
I think we can pause it reversing. We can reverse some of it. And I believe I have reversed some of it because I have made videos showing people how like the tip that fell out is darker than the bottom. But it takes a lot, you know, it is a lot of lifestyle change, a very healthy amount of sleep, supplements, internal and external work. Because when we talk about Ayurveda, health is not just physical health. Health is not just mental health. Health is not just oral health or gut health. When we say health in Ayurveda, it's all aspects. It's a 360 aspect of health because you're combining your mental health, your emotional health, your SP health. Most people don't even talk about that. We only focus on the physical aspect. And if I give you.
That's why they say mind, body, spirit, right?
Exactly, exactly. So it is as much as I try to balance it, and I think I've done a decent job in slowing it down. The process, which was accelerated a few years ago, pausing it to a good extent, reversing it to some extent, but not completely.
So my personal experience, I'll tell you. And then I'll come to the second question. I lost a lot of my here in2011, I'd bought a company in UK and I was traveling like literally almost twice a month to uk and I was talking to uk. Four o' clock in the morning, four to eight, do my daily rituals.
