India
expects Guinness record on mass Yoga Day
The heart of India’s capital will transform into a sea
of colorful mats June 21 as thousands perform the camel, cobra and other
postures for the first International Yoga Day championed by Narendra Modi.
Shortly after dawn on a New Delhi boulevard, some
35,000 bureaucrats, students, soldiers and others are to take part in the
35-minute mass outdoor yoga session, hopeful of qualifying for the Guinness
Book of Records.
Yoga enthusiasts in other countries are also expected
to stretch and bend for the celebration of the ancient Indian practice,
including in Britain where mats will be rolled out along the banks of the River
Thames.
İndia’s Prime Minister, a vegetarian who practices the
craft daily, has made Yoga Day a key initiative of his Hindu nationalist
government since he took office 13 months ago. Preparations in India have been
getting pace since the United Nations agreed to the day, with schools,
military barracks and even jails encouraged to participate in their own
sessions on June 21. Posters and other
advertisements have also been published throughout the country encouraging
residents to descend on their local park for “yoga for harmony and peace”.
Starting at 7 a.m. instructors will teach the session,
to be beamed on giant screens along the historic avenue. Modi wants to reclaim
yoga as an historical part of Indian culture which has been lost to the West.
Scholars believe yoga dates back 5,000 years, based on
archaeological evidence and refrences to yogic teachings in the ancient Hindu
scriptures of the Vedas.
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