BANGALORE: How on earth can anyone attain spiritual salvation by doing yoga at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium? Sportspersons find it tough to even run let alone squat in silence to meditate. The question is not of facilities but how did the authorities, in the first place, allot the Sree Kanteerava Stadium for a non-sporting pursuit like yoga.
The venue is meant purely for sports. It may be anything else, even a way of life, but it certainly is not a sporting discipline. Ever since the synthetic track came to be damaged by events like musical nights, a resolution was passed in the state assembly barring everyone from using the stadium for non-sporting purposes. It was never allotted to anyone for events other than sports.
Even the indoor stadium can only be allotted for commercial purposes if no sports event is planned on those dates. Preference has to be given to sports associations in its use. So how did yoga get into the Sree Kanteerava Stadium? According to some officials of the youth services department, the direction came from the state government.
“If no sports organisation has booked it on those dates, you can give it for yoga,” officials said.
But then why should the government decide to go against its own decisions, is the question. “In future, we will not give it for yoga,” said another official.
There are varied definitions of yoga but none of them define yoga to be a sporting pursuit. According to one definition, the Sanskrit word yoga has the literal meaning of “yoke”, from the root yuj meaning to join, to unite, or to attach.
One hopes the State government follows its own resolutions.