Mysuru has done it again, showcasing its yoga prowess with thousands of enthusiasts thronging the Mysuru Race Club (MRC) on the foothills of the Chamundi on Thursday morning to commemorate the 4th International Day of Yoga.
Unlike last year, no attempt was made to attain any world record this year but the spirit was alike with enthusiasts, carrying vivid yoga mats and wearing white clothes, queuing up before seven gates of the venue at the crack of dawn to be part of an hour-long yoga session.
All roads led to the MRC since 5 a.m. The roads leading to and adjoining the MRC had been packed with people (around 60% of them were schoolchildren) coming in groups in various modes of transport.
Like last year, the atmosphere was sprightly with the young and the old putting up a spirited show. Hundreds of volunteers representing various yoga schools had been deployed inside and outside the venue to help the participants, while the police had a testing task of managing traffic outside the venue.
Last year, Mysuru entered the record books for putting up the largest yoga demonstration of 55,000-plus people in a single venue. “If we had applied for the records this year too, the city may have entered the record books once again, breaking its previous record,” many felt.
After a customary inauguration of the event by Minister for Tourism S.R. Mahesh, the session got off to a start at 7 a.m. with a prayer and warm-up exercises before the ‘asanas’, as recommended by the Government of India for the yoga day, began with a battery of yoga gurus coordinating the session, giving instructions to the participants.
The dignitaries, including Mysuru MP Pratap Simha, scion of Mysuru royal family Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar, MLA S.A. Ramdas, and Deputy Commissioner Abhiram G. Sankar, performed yoga on the stage. Starting with ‘tadasana’ and ending with ‘shavasana’, the yoga enthusiasts performed all 19 asanas, which was followed by pranayama and meditation. As many as 74 ‘yoga blocks’ had been created at the venue with each one of them accommodating around 1,000 people. The organisers claimed that around 70,000 people registered for the event online and offline.
B.S. Prashanth and S.V. Venkatesh, who were coordinating the event, said the turnout was reasonably good despite carrying out preparations in a short span of time.
Yoga day coordinator Srihari said 150 officers and 2,000 volunteers assisted for putting up this show. Around 70% of participants were schoolchildren and over 2,000 yoga trainers prepared these students for today’s session.
