Spectacle of India's soft power on display

By the time you read this, India’s very own age-old yoga — imbibing the essence of life — would have left a global imprint from Siachen in Jammu & Kashmir to Kollam in Kerala, from Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh to Jalgaon in Maharashtra, from San Francisco in the US to Auckland in New Zealand. With 191 countries 

and over 250 cities participating in the first International Yoga Day on Sunday, it doesn’t get any bigger.

School students and teachers, armed forces personnel and officers, Government babus and Ministers, corporate executives and yoga gurus, diplomats and commoners will perform yoga — be it on air, land and sea as India makes its bid to enter the Guinness Book of World Records in the category of the largest yoga demonstration at a single venue by 37,500 people at one go on Rajpath in an event almost on par in grandness and extravagance with the Republic Day parade. 

The current record is in the name of Vivekanand Kendra at Jiwaji University in Gwalior for holding an 18-minute class involving 29,973 students, drawn from 362 schools.

In the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the man behind June 21 being made the International Yoga Day by the United Nations last year, the performers will showcase traditional yoga asanas on a 1,400-metre-stretch on the Rajpath. The Prime Minister will arrive at 6.40 am to participate in the function with the 35-minute yoga session to start at 7 am. 

Though Modi himself will not perform, nevertheless, on Saturday he urged everyone to participate. “Tomorrow the world will celebrate the first Yoga Day. I urge you all to be a part of it and inspire others to join as well,” Modi said in a statement.Four children — two boys and two girls from the Delhi-based Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga — will lead the performance with the 37,500 participants following them through 23 giant lED screens. The institute under the Ministry of AYUSH has developed a common 35-minute Yoga protocol to be performed by everyone in the country. The mega event will be telecast live through NIC and Doordarshan.