: More than 120 years after Swami Vivekananda crossed the Atlantic and introduced yoga to the Western world, the discipline is a thriving industry in that part of the world with different variations taking shape every other day. 2014 proved a significant year for yoga in India, with the United Nations declaring June 21 as the International Day of Yoga, following a proposal made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Now, it seems the discipline is catching the attention of other countries if one goes by the turnout at the ongoing 21st International Yoga Festival 2015 being held in Puducherry and organised by the Department of Tourism. Young-Hun Cho, president of the World Sports Yoga Alliance based in South Korea, is here to pick up a few tips. His organisation wants to conduct an international yoga tournament in South Korea in March this year through a tie-up with the Chennai-based Asana Andiappan College of Yoga and Research Centre. In the three years since his organisation has been set up, interest in yoga has really picked up in South Korea, he says. “Yoga was new at first, a couple of years ago. Now, it has become popular with people realising its benefits,” he says.
“At first, it was the English-speaking world which first took up yoga from India. Now, we are seeing the world opening up to yoga and interest from non-English speaking countries,” says Yogacharini Meenakshi Devi Bhuvanani, wife of the late Yogamaharishi Dr Swami Gitananda Giri who established the Ananda Ashram in Pondicherry in 1968. She says their International Centre for Yoga Education and Research which she oversees, has begun attracting students from Vietnam, South Korea, Hungary and Czech Republic.
The Yoga Festival in Puducherry traces its beginnings to a conference on yoga organised in 1989 by the Yoga Jivana Satsangha (to which Ananda Ashram belongs). The conference was attended by around 500 people and the then government of Puducherry saw potential in the idea. The first International Yoga Festival in 1993 held at the Indira Gandhi stadium was a grand success, Ms. Bhuvanani says, adding that the festival has been regularly held, except in the year after the tsunami and the cyclone Thane. “The festival is now very well-known and has done a lot of good for Puducherry. The government can consider inviting Prime Minister Narendra Modi for next year’s festival given his initiatives in yoga,” she says.
With Puducherry’s unique history of being home to sages and sidhars thousands of years ago, the town must not lose sight of its position, she says. “Many people have told me there is no other place in India where yoga is so widely understood and practised. We must ensure Puducherry is a sincere place which nourishes people who come looking for something more in their lives,” she adds.
