Author: Reshma Patil
Publication: The Indian
Express
Date: September 19,
2000
Scratch the surface of
this cyber city and its dotcom facade. What do you find? A growing generation
that shuns corporate careers to embrace yoga, dances to Shiamak Davar by
day and seeks Conversations with God by night.
Here, when you meet a
regular college-going bunch and expect them to break into a conversation
on girl friends, careers and discos, what you get instead is the language
of cosmic energy, spiritual healing, meditation and a search for the sublime,
the kind of behaviour that makes best-sellers out of Deepak Chopra and
the Seven Spiritual Laws of success.
While other 19-year-olds
in Fergusson College were busy with the routine of college and canteen,
second-year arts student Mandar Bapat dispensed astrology consultancy and
studied the techniques of dhyaan since class X. Today this MA student briskly
predicts business highs and lows for corporate managers from his home in
Shukrawar Peth, but careful to take time out for solo sojourns in meditation
centres at Chaphal, Sajjangad and Gondavale.
Eight months ago, 24-year-old
Murtuza Dasti was gearing for management studies in the US. That was until
he tried out a little bit of yoga at a city institute. Now Dasti, who never
misses his weekly blessings at the Dagdusheth Halwai Ganpati temple, is
certain he wants to be "a yoga teacher. It has changed my psyche completely.
I'm sure I don't want to. he one of the millions running after money only
to suffer stress daily". Dasti takes his calling seriously. "My job is
to transmit the message of yoga and meditation. I have no time for anything
else."
Don't let the fancy mobile
handset fool you. For 21-year-old Darpan Sanghvi, chief of marketing at
a leading dotcom, admits he is "a total religion freak". That goes beyond
guzzling juice and soups daily to 20 minutes of yoga.
