Author: Anahita Mukherji
Publication: The Times of India
Date: May 21, 2007
What started off as a high-scoring area of
study has turned into a way of life. When JB Petit High School, Fort, began
offering yoga as an optional 100-mark subject for the ICSE board exams, not
only did students score phenomenally high marks, they also got hooked on to
doing yoga long after the exams ended.
Of the seven subjects, each worth 100 marks,
in the ICSE exam, the board offers several options on one of them. Some of
the popular ones include Accounts, Home Science and Art. But a few schools
like J B Petit offer yoga - and the result of imparting knowledge on an ancient
Indian science are beginning to tell.
"When we first began the subject, of
the 16 students who opted for yoga, 14 scored in the 90s,'' says the JB Petit
yoga teacher Anahita Sanjana. The following year, 26 students opted for yoga,
with 18 scoring in the 90s. For the current batch of ICSE students, for whom
the results were announced on Saturday, the highest marks scored by the school
in yoga turned out to be 96%.
However, Sanjana says it's not the marks that
count. "For me, yoga is the art of being happy and I teach what I live
by,'' feels Sanjana. She has seen yoga transform students from introverts
to extroverts, tame the tempers of hot-headed youngsters and help students
improve concentration.
"Yoga is now a part of my daily life,''
feels Samira Kelkar, who sat for the ICSE this year and scored 88% in the
subject. Not only is the subject a part of her life, but she also teaches
yoga.
Riddhi Shah, who sat for the ICSE exam last
year, had never done yoga until Class IX. "Yoga helped me pass in all
my other exams. I practised yoga before every paper and it helped keep me
calm and focussed for the exams,'' she added. Despite having passed out of
school a year ago, she's still a regular at the school yoga camp, held annually
in Pondichery.
For ICSE, the subject includes a component
of theory as well as practicals. The theory involves basics of biology, saints
of India, various schools of thought and a study of some Sanskrit verses.
The practical component involves the various "Asanas''.
While JB Petit was the fist school in Mumbai to offer yoga as an ICSE subject,
only a handful of schools have followed suit.
"Though the ICSE board has put yoga on
the list of optional subjects for many years, very few schools in the country
offer the subject,'' said Poonam Sodhi, deputy secretary for the ICSE board.
Anahita.mukherji@timesgroup.com
