Sunday, June 21, 2015

The Great Indian Yoga Moment

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup






The Great Indian Yoga Moment

The famed Rajpath where India's gratest glory spectacle the Republic Day Parade is held was turned in to a veritable 'Yogapath", as PM Modii put it so aptly,  for the celebration of the very Modi- inspired International Yoga Day today. While the nature blessed the event with a slight monsoon  sprinkle, the rain god held back till the end.


  The heart of India’s capital today turned into a sea of colorful mats as Prime Minister Narendra Modi led thousands of people performing various physical postures across the country for the first International Yoga Day. PM Modi was expected to make only a speech at the event and not take part at the mass yoga session. But dressed in all-white kurta-pyjama and a tricolour scarf, 64-year-old Modi took everyone by surprise by performing a variety of postures including Vajrasan and Padmasan, along with nearly 40,000 people on red mats on the Rajpath in a 30-minute mass outdoor yoga session from 7 am, also aimed at qualifying for the Guinness Book of Records.



 
  Before going to the event, the prime minister tweeted early this morning "greetings to people around the world on 1st International Day of Yoga! Lets pledge to make Yoga an integral part of our daily lives ."
 
  Heralding the session, off the event, Modi said the yoga session is aimed at benefiting the people by making them both physically and mentally healthy. He said yoga seeks to make a tension-free world and spread the message of harmony and added that it is "more than only physical fitness". "We are not only celebrating a day but we are training the human mind to begin a new era of peace – harmony. ….This is a programme for the benefit of mankind, a tension-free world and a programme to spread the message of harmony," Modi said.
 
  Giant digital screens set up for the event beamed live the yoga session for which security arrangements matched that of the Republic Day celebrations held every year on January 26 as more than 8,000 security personnel guarded the venue. Yoga day was  celebrated in over 251 cities in 191 countries across the world; in Britain, mats were rolled out along the banks of the River Thames
 

 
  In spite of certain communal  quarters and the opposition, trying to  hit the event of 'peace and harmony' with jarring notes of discord and in the process belittling one of India's greatest contributions to the world,  the whole of India celebrated yoga day almost unanimously.

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