Yoga becoming lifestyle trend in urban Nepal

Yoga has almost become a lifestyle trend among the urban middle class in this country, courtesy the Indian television channels which telecast holistic health and lifestyle programmes. Yoga CDs, VCDs and Indian health manuals are also easily available and sold at streetside book vends and leading bookstores.

The power of Indian yoga also has government endorsement in the country, which grapples with a high drug addiction rate and work-related stress.

Ratan Kumar Misra, an auditor at a firm in Kathmandu, practises an hour of Indian yoga and pranayam or breathing exercises every morning. Misra is among around 100,000 people in this country who have benefited from yoga and ayurveda as an alternative lifestyle and healing trend.

"I feel comfortable after my morning ritual of yoga. Though I can't do it every day, over the last few days, I have not compromised on my fitness regimen. Indian yoga is very popular in Nepal," Misra said.

For Misra, the simple routine of half-an-hour of breathing exercises or pranayam followed by asanas or yogic postures has kept his 'high blood pressure in check'.

Babu Raja, a shopkeeper in Kathmandu, is enthusiastic about yoga too. "Yoga will help Nepal consolidate its social fabric - especially among the urban professionals. Thousands of residents of Kathmandu switch on their television early in the morning to watch Indian channels like Aastha beam yoga capsules," Raja said.

The shopkeeper, who is attending yoga guru Ramdev's six-day yoga and health service (ayurveda) camp at Tundikhiel in the capital, 'goes to Swayambhunath Temple atop a hill in the capital' to meditate and practice yoga.

Raja says traditional Indian yoga will help foster 'peace in the Nepali society'. "I believe in the power of ayurveda," the shopkeeper said.

Indian yoga has forayed into the Nepalese common psyche in different ways. For 73-year journalist Ramashish, who has spent 46 years in Kathmandu, 'yoga has given him a second chance in life'.

"In 2004, I was diagnosed with 95 per cent arterial blockade and a valve had collapsed. The hospitals in India said I required surgery. But I took to pranayama and yoga and now I am fit," the veteran newsman said in Kathmandu. The newsman claimed that 'yoga has even helped him grow new hair on his bald pate'.

The power of Indian yoga has received a big shot in the arm with guru Ramdev, the co-founder of Patanjali Yogpeeth, opening his five-day yoga camp - the second in three years - at Tundikhiel in the capital.

The guru, with the help of the Nepal government, is commissioning four new yoga projects at Dhulikhel, Syangsa, Mandikathar and Tundikhiel in the capital.

"We have invested Rs 40 crore (INR) in promoting yoga in the country," Shaligram Singh, a trustee for the Haridwar-based Patanjali Yogpeeth, said.

Not only Patanjali yog, the Bangalore-based Art of Living Foundation led by seer Ravi Shankar, has also made inroads in Nepal. "I have been practicing sudarshan kriya for the last four years and am into advanced level meditation now," Prakash Shah, a resident of the Tarai region in Nepal, said.

Shah, a member of Nepal's Madhesi Party, said the Art of Living was popular in the Terai region and had a large centre at Birgunj on the Bihar-Nepal border.

Books on yoga have also been a catalyst in carrying the message of holistic lifestyle across the country. Manuals available at roadside kiosks and leading bookstores are priced reasonably to reach out to the working class.

For the youth, yoga is a potent tool to battle addiction. "Yoga is drawing back the youth to the holistic lifestyle fold. It is permanent de-addiction," Bhuwan KC, a Kathmandu-based teacher in his 20s, said.

Vijaya Laxmi, a pharmacist in the capital, says "yoga has become the talk in the drawing rooms of urban Nepal." "For working women like us, it is a great stress-buster," the pharmacist said.