I was anticipating this to a certain extent but this morning when I switched on the TV the first word I heard was – YOGA!
I was expecting it all but was not ready for all this hullabaloo about it. When I say this, hey, I am not supporting Congress on any anti-BJP and not even BJP, for that matter. My fingers move fast enough on the keys of the remote-control as fast as they could and nearly (read it as ALL) every news channel was talking about it, to the level that it sounded like a Honey Singh raga, sorry I meant rap! There was a news flash on some channel,”Beta karoge to hoga (if you try, it’ll happen) ” and I started thinking about the revenue of the patanjali, though no one said it!
I was just getting over this mantle block of mine, which was trying to connect all these totally unrelated, badly scattered, dots while the phone rings. It was my elder sister:
I: Hello Di!
Di: Kaisa hai! Aur aaj subah se kitna halla macha hua hai, suna tune?
I: Kya halla chalu hai??
Di: Pahle to tu apni Hindi sudhar! chalu?!! (side effects of being in Mumbai)
I: ah..umm Yeah, I heard about the yoga – just watching the news about it. (I could hear the grunt about my sudden change from Hindi to English; neglecting it all She continues… )
Di: haan ab theek hai. Tune kiya? Did you do yoga today?
I: yes, just done with it. (Saying something else could have been bad for my health! And well, I was not telling a lie)
Di: Good, we (her husband and son) could not go for it…she inquired about parents and did some more talks; call ends.
I’d like to believe that common man conversation ,this morning, should have been like this, across nation.
I had been doing gym for too long to remember and I know when you don’t make a good posture while doing weight lifting how badly can it hurt. And I can say that because I’ve had witnessed a broken ligament in lower back! This incidence had turned me too towards Yoga.
Along with postures, yoga is more like a connect between mind, body and soul. Derived from the Sanskrit word “yuj”, Yoga means union of the individual consciousness or soul with the Universal Consciousness or Spirit. It is said that Yoga is a 5000 year old Indian body of knowledge. Though at the face value of it and for most of “my-types” (The WYSIWYD generation – “What You See Is What You Do. If you don’t understand the last acronym – Check WYSIWYG ). I and I think most of us think of yoga only as a physical exercise where people twist, turn, stretch, and breathe in the most complex possible way! But these are just what you see at the face value of it and are the most superficial aspect of this profound science – as I said earlier, a science of unfolding the infinite potentials of the human mind and soul.
June 21 is declared as the International Day of Yoga by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 2014. The declaration of this day came after the call for the adoption of 21 June as International Day of Yoga by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his address to UN General Assembly on September 27, 2014 wherein he stated:
“Yoga is an invaluable gift of India’s ancient tradition. This tradition is 5000 years old. It embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well-being. It is not about exercise but to discover the sense of oneness with you, the world and the nature. By changing our lifestyle and creating consciousness, it can help us deal with climate change. Let us work towards adopting an International Yoga Day.”
—Narendra Modi, UN General Assembly