International Yoga Day: PM Modi's yoga teacher Dr HR Nagendra (L) opened a Delhi branch in Jor Bagh.
Highlights
- PM Modi's yoga teacher opened a Delhi branch in upmarket area Jor Bagh
- PM first visited Dr Nagendra's centre for yoga lessons over 35 years ago
- Dr Nagendra's team also trains personnel of the Indian Air Force in yoga
The man who gave Prime Minister Narendra Modi his yoga moves, Dr HR Nagendra, has just got himself an address less than three kilometres away from his star student's Lok Kalyan Marg residence in Delhi. The 71-year old yoga teacher opened a Delhi branch last week in the upmarket Jor Bagh.
PM Modi, 66, first visited Dr Nagendra's yoga centre Prashanti in Bengaluru for yoga lessons more than 35 years ago and made a few more visits over the years. But Dr Nagendra says his move to Delhi is not prompted by the need to be closer to the Prime Minister to give him personalised yoga lessons more frequently. That is apparently not required. "He knows very well what to do. His favourite is the cyclic meditation or
Avartan Dhyana and if he needs anything, he can just call me,'' he told NDTV.
Dr Nagendra is in no doubt though that his association with the PM has been a force multiplier for his fame. "When our institute started, only 20 per cent of the seats were filled, but now we are oversubscribed,'' said the yoga expert, sharing that five times more people have enrolled since 2015.
"There were so many queries that we just decided to open here in Delhi,'' he added.
The Prime Minister has stayed close to Dr Nagendra through the years. As Gujarat Chief Minister, he would invite Dr Nagendra's team to conduct yoga
shivirs or camps for his entire cabinet. Two years ago, PM Modi set up the Centre for Integrative Medicine and Research at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and, as the force behind
International Yoga Day, has led massive yoga sessions since 2015 on June 21. Today the PM was in Lucknow, where
he performed yoga asanas along with 50,000 people.
"This year the PM's brief was very simple. He wanted us to tackle diabetes. Yoga saves everyone from expensive treatment and medicines," said Dr Nagendra, adding that his team worked closely with the AYUSH ministry to deliver on that.
Dr Nagendra's team also trains personnel of the Indian Air Force in yoga.
His institute in Bengaluru is already a deemed university of which Dr Nagendra is Chancellor. The Jor Bagh centre, a new four-storey building inaugurated by Health Minister JP Nadda and Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, will include a massage centre, a teacher training class which will train 40 teachers per batch and also "a kind of beauty parlour," says Dr Nagendra, about a section that will look exclusively at holistic beauty treatments through Ayurveda.