An eight-year-old girl from Thanam, a small village near Parawada, about 50 km from here, has turned into a yoga expert in a span of four years, thanks to the CSR initiative of the NTPC Simhadri Super Thermal Power Plant.
Hailing from a BPL family with her father eking out a living as a daily wage earner, the story of K. Srujana Pujitha from the Government Residential School at Thanam has become a source of inspiration to many.
An academically average student with no big ambition, her life changed when she started training under a certified yoga trainer engaged by NTPC Simhadri in 2016. With seriousness and passion to improve, she learnt the art very fast. Now she practises over 200 types of asanas, including the most difficult ‘purnaruchika, mayura, purnachalaba and ganda berunda.’
Promising future
“She has already won several awards and I am sure she has the potential to win at international level provided proper encouragement is given to her,” yoga teacher Ch. Anjaneyulu told The Hindu .
With increasing recognition of her expertise, she is quite elated and determined to learn further. “Sky is the limit for me to learn to keep myself healthy,” she said.
From securing the silver medal in Nellore State-level competition in 2018 to a gold in Kurnool at another State-level event in 2019 and a bronze at the district level, Pujitha became the first girl ever from Visakhapatnam to be selected for an international yoga competition held in Chandigarh in 2018.
She aims to take up a government job in the future to bring financial security to her family. Her parents are now very happy that she has a promising future. Drawing inspiration from her, her younger sibling has also started learning yoga.
Support for trainees
NTPC Simhadri under its CSR programme is imparting yoga training by engaging Mr. Anjaneyulu. Currently, it is being taught to over 4,000 students of government schools in Parawada mandal.
An official of NTPC Simhadri said besides promoting yoga in a big way, they were also providing yoga suits, equipment, mats and travel expenditure for students to enable them to take part in various events.
