A Yoga enthusiast who set a record for performing Kapalbhati at the age of 65

An inspiring story of M.P. Ramesh Babu (Khyaal Community Member)

“What life holds for you, you certainly don't know, and the same happened to me many years ago. I remember I was down with a bad cold, and days just passed by but no medicines worked on me. That's when my father encouraged me to join yoga to cure my cold. In 1973, I joined a yoga institution that was 20 minutes away from my home. 

I dedicatedly learnt yoga from Guruji there and day by day my curiosity about yoga kept growing. I accompanied Guruji in his classes, and sometimes I got the chance to conduct the classes. I used to go to the institute every day at sharp 5 a.m and just had two holidays in the whole year. Many people joined and left yoga due to pain, but I knew one thing, "pain is temporary, the gain is permanent."

As I became confident about yoga, I started taking part in yoga competitions. Overall, I participated in more than 50 yoga competitions and won several of them in different states. But being selected for the National level was a real problem as the inside coordinators/people were biased towards their known people and only selected them. That scenario made me sad but it didn't demotivate me, in fact, it boosted me to fly higher. 

I constantly worked hard towards my goal and practised Kapalbhati Pranayama daily without any excuses. Finally, the day arrived when I was all ready to set a new record. In 2017, at the age of 65, I broke the India Book of Records by performing Kapalbhati Pranayama for non-stop 1hr 21minutes. I received the certificate from the honourable Deputy Commissioner of Mysore, and my name was written in the India Book of Records.

I started doing yoga at the age of 19. I pursued Diploma in Yoga Therapy (D.Y.T) in the year 2018. Today at 70, I am still strongly connected to yoga/meditation and desire to break more records. Also, I would like to say one thing to all my fellow seniors; engage themselves in yoga/meditation or at least some exercises and daily walk.” - M.P. Ramesh Babu (Khyaal Community Member)