Every year on June 21, the International Day of Yoga rolls around. Schools hold assemblies. Students unroll mats.
A chief guest talks about health. Then everyone goes home.
This year at PM SHRI Kendriya Vidyalaya in Zirakpur, the event drew roughly 700 students and teachers. That number matters. Seven hundred people stopped their normal routines to breathe, stretch, and hold poses.
In an era when children spend hours hunched over phones, that is not a small thing. The chief guest was yogacharya Ram Pratap.
He holds postgraduate degrees in yoga, Sanskrit, and philosophy. The school’s announcement stated he has worked in yoga promotion and public welfare for nearly two decades. He is currently with the Brahmrishi Yoga Training Institute.
That is a credential set that signals depth. Not a weekend certification. Two decades of practice and study.
Principal Pushpa Sharma offered a green welcome. That detail — a green welcome — suggests an environmental thread woven into the event.
The report does not elaborate, but the gesture is concrete. A garland, perhaps. A plant.
Something living. Pratap gave an address.
The school described it as inspiring. He spoke on yoga, a healthy lifestyle, and mental well-being. Then the real work began.
All students and faculty members participated in a yoga session. Asanas. Pranayama.
The physical postures and the breath control exercises that form the core of yogic practice. Ravi Kumar, the school’s yoga teacher, coordinated the programme.
So did Ashok, a postgraduate teacher in physical education. Two teachers, two areas of expertise, one event. That coordination suggests the school treats yoga not as a one-off performance but as something that requires trained supervision.
A yoga teacher and a physical education teacher working together. That is a structural choice.
The stated objective was raising awareness about yoga and inspiring students to lead healthy, balanced lives. Those are the official words. The unofficial stakes are higher.
Seven hundred young people are being trained in habits that could keep them out of hospitals decades from now. Diabetes. Hypertension.
Anxiety disorders. The diseases of modern sedentary life do not announce themselves at age 14.
They build quietly over years. Yoga is one intervention against that slow buildup. Rajendra Kumar, a postgraduate teacher in Hindi, delivered the vote of thanks.
He expressed gratitude to the chief guest and extended best wishes to all participants. The event closed.
PM SHRI Kendriya Vidyalaya operates under the central government’s PM SHRI scheme. That scheme emphasizes holistic education. Not just test scores.
Not just college admissions. Holistic. The word means the whole person.
This event was a demonstration of that philosophy in action. The International Day of Yoga has been observed annually on June 21 since 2015.
It has become a fixture in many Indian schools. A fixture can become routine. Routine can become hollow.
The question at an event like this is whether the practice sticks. Whether the 700 students who held poses on that day will remember what they learned.
Whether they will integrate it into their lives. That is the real stake. Not the ceremony.
Not the speeches. Not the green welcome. Whether, a year from now, some of those 700 students still roll out their mats.
Whether they still breathe. Whether the asanas and pranayama become part of who they are, not just something they did once for a school event.
