About
Runfor Lupus
Hey there! I'm Urvashi.
When I was diagnosed with lupus back in 2018, I was fortunate to receive excellent medical care. My family and loved ones were highly supportive and played a crucial role in my journey to recovery.
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However, their best efforts still left me feeling alienated from time to time, because I had no fellow lupus-warrior to talk to or confide in. People around me could empathise with me, but communicating with someone who has been there before, or who is going through it alongside you has a different re-assurance altogether.
Not because they have the answers, or they know what to do.
But because in their own bewilderment and suffering, they found a way out. And in sharing their own story, they can inspire others to hold on tight as well.
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Getting a hold of fellow lupus warrior Selena Gomez seemed cumbersome :P, but I reading posts on online lupus support groups via Facebook helped me to a great extent. I found that the western world was rife with lupus support groups and awareness drives, but a similar community is yet to build in India.
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Thus, this space is my personal effort towards the creation of that community. I hope that, by sharing my own lupus journey, I will be able to help and instill hope in others who might be struggling with the disease.
In the twin pursuit of lending peer support to fellow lupus warriors, and to help generate greater awareness about lupus, I created RunForLupus. RunForLupus is my personal lupus handle, through which I try and share aspects of my own lupus journey, my recovery and day to day challenges, tiny remedies and all experiential knowledge that I believe could help others who are on a similar journey.
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Apart from writing and posting occasional vlogs on Instagram, I also dream of spreading lupus awareness by running for the course. I have run 10 ks before, but I envision participating in a half marathon at least once, and hopefully some day, host a running event dedicated to this cause. Hence, the name, RunForLupus, because your fittest self doesn't have to fear autoimmune disease. Rather, your strength lies in finding peace with an overactive immune system, finding the balance and treating it with boundless love. In the junction where self love, forgiveness and hope meet, I believe healing is roaming free,
waiting to be found.
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I wish for you to note that none of the content shared in this blog is intended to replace medical advice, and is a mere account of my limited experiential knowledge.
More About Me
I was born on the 6th of July, 1992 in Jaipur to the Rajput family of Khimsar. My parents are hoteliers and have built the glorious legacy that the world today known as the Khimsar Group of Hotels.
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I studied at Mayo College Girls' School, Ajmer, after which I went to the Lady Shriram College for Women, New Delhi to pursue a bachelor's degree in political science. Post that, I completed my masters' degree in Gender, Media and Culture from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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Fearing that he would lose me to the West, my father offered me the prospect of running a resort in the Himalayas. I consider this opportunity to be a blessing, which paved my life in Manali as the proprietor of a 22-room boutique hotel called Urvashi's Retreat.
It was established in 2014 and after the initial years when Manali hosted a 90-day season per year, improved road infrastructure has turned Manali into a perennial destination. Thus, post the pandemic, I decided to leave Delhi NCR and move here permanently.
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In my own little Himalayan world, you can find me working, baking, cycling, motorcycling, trekking, taking photographs, reading or just passing my time with my home-based community of wonderful people and three four legged pooches- Cleo, Tsarina and Zoro. ​​​
