BKS Iyengar Pune Celebrations

Over the course of the last few days I have had a chance to attend some of the celebrations for Guruji. It was a UN affair, with many attendees from all parts of the world. I have never seen so many non Indians dressed in traditional and elaborate Indian dresses. The celebrations began on Dec 10th with the puja and then moved to Yashwant Auditorium in the heart of Deccan (Pune) where an exhibition was put together by his students chronicling his life. The evening of Dec 11th a movie on Guruji's life called "Leap of Faith" was shown. It chronicled his life from childhood, his struggles as a disciple of his guru in Mysore and then on to his path of creating his unique style of yoga in Pune and his subsequent impact on the world.

On Dec 12th we had the pleasure of experiencing the beautiful flute ragas of Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasias. I captured some pictures from the exhibition and there is subsequent video footage that I will post in a future post. This trip has been jam-packed as I squeezed a few hours of attendance along with an intense work schedule. I finally met up with my friend Felipe a yoga student from Chile, who I met on the Iyengar group on facebook, and who read my Pune blog posts from April to help him guide through his stay in Pune. I was glad to hear that those posts helped him to get settled in his yoga practice in Pune.

I am now Bangalore and will be joining the next part of Guruji's celebrations in South India on the 17th. Last night was the grand celebration of Guruji's birthday. It felt like a big Indian wedding! Videos and pictures to come soon.

Namaste

The Yogi