Kunnamthanam, India’s first Total Yoga Village, lived up to its reputation at the International Yoga Day on Thursday.
Around 4,000 people, including women, children and the elderly, lined up along the sides of the 5-km Manthanam-Chengaroorchira stretch of the Kunnamthanam-Mallappally Road, practising yoga. Traders did the poses in front of their shops, while autorickshaw and taxi drivers and trade union workers positioned themselves at the taxi stand and the market performing yoga.
Children and staff at seven schools in the Kunnamthanam grama panchayat too took part in the event, organised by the CPI(M)-ruled grama panchayat in association with the Thiruvalla-based Pranavom Yoga Centre (PYC).
The event also marked the first anniversary of the Total Yoga Village declaration made by the grama panchayat on the previous International Yoga Day.
It was a 10-minute session on Thursday and there was enthusiastic participation in the first five minutes, before a drizzle turned into downpour and partly affected the event.
The Total Yoga Village programme was part of the ‘My Village, Healthy Village’ project of the local body, say panchayat president K.K. Radhakrishna Kurup and district panchayat member S.V. Subin.
The aim of the project was to make the yoga an integral part of the village living. As many as 16,300 villagers have benefited from the free yoga camps conducted by the PYC in the village in the past 18 months, says M.G. Dileep, yoga instructor and PYC director.
The centre has conducted 540 yoga training camps in the village in 18 months, he said.
Mr. Dileep said the project received good response from the public. “Yoga is not a religion. It is a science of integrating the mind, body and soul,” says Fr. P.K. Kurien, vicar of St. Mary’s Sehion Orthodox Church at Kunnamthanam. Priests, nuns, and a few physically challenged too took part in the session held at Kunnamthanam on Thursday.
In recognition of the panchayat’s initiative, the Centre had reportedly decided to emulate the Kunnamthanam-model Yoga Village project in 500 villages in the country.
