Pune’s cyber generation takes a break, seek solace in spirituality

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 (English) student briskly predicts business highs and lows for corporate managers from his home in Shukrawar Peth, careful to take time out for solo spiritual sojourns in meditation centres of Chaphal,Sajjangad and Gondavale.

Eight months ago, 24-year-old Murtuza Dasti was gearing for management studies in the USA. That was until he tried out a little bit of yoga at a city institute. Now Dasti, who never misses his weekly blessings at theDagdusheth Halwai Ganpati temple, is emphatic that he wants to be “a yoga teacher. It has changed my psyche completely. I’m sure I don’t want to be 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 hand-set 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 four natural juices and three soups daily to 20 minutes of yoga instead of pumping iron at the neighbourhood gym. “I visit temples and Nakadoji in Rajasthan as often as I can. I fast whenever I can.” All this to be “fit and energetic for the dotcom world.”

Eighteen-year-old Nandini John dances to Shiamak Davar’s steps, and raves about Madhuri Dixit — only to admit in the same breath that “she does sometimes propagate her belief in God.”

This self-taught meditation practitioner with plans for a career in human resource management, is quick to admit to “one Sunday without church, and ending up sick in bed for a week.”

Seventeen-year-old Revathi Ramachandran from Symbiosis already has a course in spiritual healing behind her and visits Shirdi at “every opportunity.”Meditation, yoga — she tries it all. To “attain peaceful calm. It depends on how stressed you are.”

While his colleagues are plotting the whims of IT scrips, 19-year-old Amit Pawar from BMCC teaches pranayam and the asanas after college hours. “Instead of sitting around in the college canteen, I’d rather look for calm and peace in yoga.” And a monthly visit to the Dagdusheth Halwai Mandir.

The spiritual quest has even entered the walls of management classrooms. Symbiosis Society’s management courses now incorporate a basic course in the art of living and spiritual healing, six days a week.

While future managers polish sudarshan kriya or breathing techniques for stress relief, Maria Das, staffer at Crossword book store and witness to a daily march toward shelves of the latest on spirituality, observes that the young readers “are very inquisitive, trying to seek answers to reassure themselves and find support to cope with the demands of a competitive world.”

Bestsellers for the soul
The search for the sublime has transcended to literary tastes with collegians above 15 and young professionals picking up these paperbacks “faster than pulp fiction,” at Crossword.
Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: Deepak Chopra
You Can Win: Shiv Khera
Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul: Jack Canfield and Mrk Victor Hansen
Tough Times Never Last but Tough People Do: Robert Schuller
Notes to Myself: Hugh Prather
Conversations With God: Neil Donald Walsch