YOGA 😀

 Dear Reader

Today is celebrated as International Yoga Day. Passing over overtly political intentions and celebrity fashion, Yoga strengthens the body and the mind when practised under good guidance. 

        The contemporary world is complicated. One finds innumerable diverse opinions that question various stereotypes related to the body. The third gender is making their presence felt, feminists, assert their preferred choice in their apparel, 'plus size' women and men are celebrating breaking standardized notions of body and of course,  not leaving out kids' fashion clothing🙆. With all this, paradoxically, the conversation about hourglass figures for women, and six-pack abs for men is incessant. Little wonder that various forms of exercise like weight training, aerobics, the most recent zoomba, rope training etc have gained immense popularity.  

     Yet, it is not very surprising that the popularity of Yoga is on the rise too. Just as there is a desire to look fit n fab, to maintain a healthy mind has become a challenge. We have knocked on the doors of medicine (anti-depressants), psychology (anti-depressants, counselling), pop psychology, motivational/inspirational speeches, ted-talks et.al. At one level, for many, Yoga is like a package deal--fit body, fit mind- in form. Disclaimer: Proceed with caution! Simple as it may seem, both yogasana, breathing practice and relaxation techniques must be performed under trained yoga practitioners, paying attention to subtle aspects of the body and the mind. It is in this attention to subtle elements that Yoga is not a form of exercise like other forms of exercising.    

    Yoga, as envisioned by its ancient Sage Patanjali (though there are questions about whether it was Sage Patanjali of ancient India or a much later historical individual with the same name) is a form of practice to align physical-psychological-spiritual being of the individual. In fact, the Sanskrit word 'Yoga' means ' union', It is a practice that aligns the body, mind and spirit. This is why it warrants cautiousness to practice under a seasoned practitioner. 

    When followed meticulously, it is a beautiful experience. But, Yoga yields results extremely slowly-physically, psychologically and spiritually. And yet, Performing Yogasana is an experience in all three aspects for an individual. It is a path of discovering oneself--the expanse and the limits of the body, mind and spirit. This understanding roots the individual firmly in one's abilities boosting confidence while it encourages one to accept one's limits, one learns to enjoy improving and strengthening one's abilities even as it allows us an awareness of what to improve without making us feel small or inefficient. Perhaps this accounts for its recent international popularity in recent times. 

   Here's wishing you all a happy 'yoga day'. In this difficult time, it is indeed a blessing to be allowed to find good health--body, mind and spirit. Happy Health🙏

Please share your comments with me at rekhadatta02@gmail.com or message me @rekhadatta1 on Instagram. I shall send the links to you personally. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Reader

Dear Reader

This post is to celebrate readership and writing. I want to share my journey as a blogger in the past year and express my sincere thankfulness to you. 

      On 15 May 2020, I posted my first blog post. This blog began with two objectives--in the time of the pandemic, it was a means of keeping in touch with people-readers and obviously the second objective was to communicate with them through the posts. I was quite excited about the new prospect this opened for me, the new opportunity and a new adventure. I must reiterate, this was all too new for me. 

    I posted the first blog with the excitement of having found a medium that allows me the freedom of expression. I like the idea of exploring many ideas from different perspectives, keeping an open mind-not being judgemental and sharing information and opinions. Just into my third blog post, I felt a little lost--am I writing what I want to or should I be writing a more appealing post that blog-readers want? So much for my frustration with newspapers and journals demanding to moderate the write-up for the readers🙆

     Still new and passionate to write my opinions and thoughts, I continued to write on topics that were contemporary and that interested me. And to my most pleasant surprise, I found that it did interest the reader 😍. But, there are some posts that I feel (even today) are very abstract viz. chronicling a hobby (I find this highly personal), Grey, Yellow and Brown-Ageing basically --something that I was very interested in writing about but didn't find many readers, An apple a day was my most risky post as I shared a poem by Pablo Neruda and it was simply ignored by the readers. 

      Thus began another round of trying to understand how to negotiate my interest/opinion to the reader. I like to call this the 'cultural phase' of my blog. Next, about 8-10 posts, was a happy phase. I explored being a bilingual-writing in Kannada and English, exploring, presenting, and sharing some important cultural memories of the days. I was very happy as these topics were close to my heart and these topics were appreciated by many readers as well🙏 

    It was also the time that I began to educate myself about the nuances of blogging and how to be a successful blogger etc. Grateful@bloggingwizzard.com for sharing posts on many aspects of writing posts and exploring ideas. It did help me to locate my posts; most importantly, what I wanted to do and what I definitely did not want to do 🙋

      It was the beginning of 2021 when I decided to write posts that required some research. It was the time when there was plenty of disharmony and cultural rifts. Personally and as a student of literature, respecting culture/s, and individuals are central. With a curiosity natural to the researcher, I began to look for the origin of food, clothing and shelter (though am yet to research and explore this). Researching these areas of our everyday life was especially gratifying. The result was the next 10 odd posts that explored the basic necessities of people and how this developed into structures of power, leading to conflicting power struggles as the common man continued to wish for a life of dignity. In these posts, I very consciously endeavoured to keep the objectivity requisite for a researcher-succeding at times and failing at times. 

       Words of encouragement and appreciation began to gather slowly, but firmly. This is an invaluable experience. I am only too glad to acknowledge the unstinting support of my readers in all these experiments. Thank you, dear reader, for the encouragement. And three cheers to reading and writing or, should I say, to the reader and the writer 😊😊😊

Dear Reader, if you have something to say or to share,  please do share👇 and if you are happy to read this blog, do hit the follow button 👉 and if you would want to, do share this blog with your friends and like-minded readers.

Please share your comments directly with me to rekhadatta02@gmail.com or message me @rekhadatta1 on Instagram. I shall send the links to you personally. Thanks for your patience.