Don’t know why,  I always have a great love and respect towards yoga and meditation . I strongly believe that these two magic wands can tame my kapicita (Buddhist term for monkey mind ) which wanders here and there. Even though I tried doing yoga by seeing online classes,  I had this strong desire of learning yoga under a trainer.

    On my first day of induction training  in APHRDI, my friend told that yoga is mandatory here. My heart filled with joy . I felt that I got a golden opportunity . Seizing the opportunity,  barring few days due to some personal reasons,  right from 2nd day of training till the end, I attended almost all classes

. Of course there were some days when my laziness tried to dominate my yoga love. My kapicita used to say :” Hey dear, daily you are  attending yoga, It’s okay if u sleep today. U need some rest “…. But Deva ‘s whistles(Deva is our hostel coordinator)  didn’t let me  listen to those cunning sentences. His continuous whistles pushed me out of my bed. The moment I stepped down out of my bed, I could realise that coming out of comfort zone needs only few minutes intense mental tussle between rational part of our mind and irrational part. The moment  we come out this comfort zone,  we can see our hidden potential.

Now coming to my yoga journey, I really enjoyed every yoga asana… Initially when I saw Madam doing different asanas,I felt that I can’t even dare of doing them…. Initially things seemed very difficult. In bending posture,  Touching my palm to my feet looked impossible. In gomukha asana,doing with left hand seemed impossible. Had the same feeling with all other tough asanas.

Crazy voice inside me was saying that I can do it with more practice. With that small faith inside me and little hope, I started doing them. Mam advised us to enjoy yoga instead of focusing on difficulty of asanas. From then I started enjoying every asana. Meanwhile, I also pushed myself out of comfort zone to bend more and to stay for more time in difficult postures. I rewarded myself with morning coffee on the day I pushed myself to do more. Efforts should be appreciated more than the final result.  I diligently practised yoga…..

Hurray….One fine day, Mam said :”Give Deepika a big hand. Come on clap for her “. I got this applauds for touching my head to knees along with palms touching feet in bending posture (sitting asana)… I felt extremely happy. Along with that I could easily do the tough gomukha asana. In next few days  I could do some other tough asanas with so much of ease.  After doing all these, I felt like as if I conquered the world…

As Robin sharma said :

“Change is difficult in the beginning. Messy in middle and gorgeous at the end”…

 Even though I’m not an yoga expert now. But at least I could bring my kapicitta under  my control. 30days of yoga brought so much change in me…my concentration and confidence levels increased, my anger decreased,moodswings are a rarity now,

my face started glowing…. Of course yoga is the best facial you can ever have.

.Still need to explore more on yoga.. .. I wholeheartedly thank APHRDI for giving me this golden opportunity to attend yoga session and saila mam(our yoga trainer) for making yoga more interesting. Her kind nature, her encouraging words and her positivity inspired me so much…

… Even today my love affair with yoga continues.

Deepika

As soon as we reached  polavaram, I felt our journey took just 10 minutes. From bapatla to polavaram it takes around 5hrs. But I felt as if in just 10 minutes, we reached.Thanks to my  wonderful friends who made our 5hr long journey in palle velugu bus   feel like a minutes journey. Playing anthakshari and rama sita game is the reason for this… Through this game I could see hidden bala subramanyam, shreya goshal, chitra and other great singers in my friends…..

As soon as we opened our room frogs, lizards, mosquitoes started  hugging us :)… We received such a warm welcome :).. As our DG sir said – “It is not you who have to be afraid of snakes, lizards, frogs etc, It is they who have to get scared.U occupied their space. So don’t hate them”.. Abiding by Sir ‘s advice we also accepted them as our roommates:).

And next three days went very fast – waking up early not to get ready but to see our DG sir’s reply to our mails. Yes….Writing daily activity report and mailing it to Sir is our homework. This activity reminded me my schooldays.

Getting ready and going by auto on muddy roads was a big challenge for us. We enjoyed this journey because on the way we could enjoy abundant greenery, cool breeze.  Drizzling rain drops  used to touch our faces.  Picturesque of green hills in polavaram  is just awesome. Hill slopes covered with green trees presented a caring sight at sunset and looked very grand.  Living with nature is such a beautiful experience which can’t be explained in words. We felt very happy in the company of nature. Added to this, eating my favourite corn, chit chatting with my friends, enjoying fresh air during our return journey to room from class was an amazing experience.

Listening day- long classes and  Slogging in the evenings to complete our homework was our three days routine. 4th and 5th day were just awesome. We had been to polavaram, patiseema project and dawaleshwaram dam. I was awestruck after seeing the pattiseema project,  especially the way the rivers are linked and usage of heavy pumps to lift the water  etc. This project entered into limca book of awards for getting completed in record time of one year. Team behind the project deserves wholehearted appreciation. They did a remarkable job.

    Later on,  we moved to dawaleshwaram barrage  and next to  SirArthur cotton  museum. We got deeply impressed by Sir Arthur Cotton.He was the man who transformed a drought and a flood ridden godavari region into the rice bowl of AndhraPradesh. Deeply touched by the hunger deaths, he worked very sincerely towards construction of dawaleshwaram barrage.  This Dedication towards duty,  highly competent engineering skills and his priceless service earned him the titles-Aparabhageeratha and The Delta architect of godavari.

              In short my visit to polavaram was both educative and delightful. It’s memory is still fresh in my mind. I wholeheartedly thank APHRDI and our DG sir for providing such an awesome visit to polavaram