Do something physical: We all know how busy our lives can get. We’re commuting, working long hours, getting up early, getting home late. However, it’s very important to be active. So, just go out and do something physically invigorating, no matter what time it is, morning or night.
Do what you love: Do something that you love. Dance to music, go on a bike ride, practise martial arts, or do yoga. Just do something that you love doing.
Work as a team: Do something with a team. Studies have shown that activities that are done in a team have a longlasting impact on our mind and we tend to keep up too. What is good for the brain is good for the soul!
Health is one of the most important gifts a person can enjoy on earth. It is almost a passport to happiness. And while our bodies are resilient testaments to the universe’s passion, our health can often be fragile. Taking care of ourselves is, indeed, our duty towards the divine.
When I was growing up in Mumbai as a teenager, one of my closest friends was Seema Poddar Agarwal. We used to bike to the Colaba sea pool in Navy Nagar. After biking, we would swim, have a Rodger soda and bike back. On the way, we would talk about things, mostly nature, as we both loved watching birds, looking at the ocean waves for hours and observing the Bombay crabs in the sand. This had a profound effect on my psyche. I understood that when we exercise and move ourselves to do things that bring us closer to nature, we are joyful!
Today, when I speak to groups of young people, I find myself telling them to do things as a team, to find joy in movement, and it all goes back to those many happy hours of biking in my youth in Mumbai!
Staying active by doing something we love reminds me of the year 1998. I fondly remember my family life in Mumbai in 1998 when being active meant taking a very unusual step! Kabir, my youngest child, was a year old and I was looking for a preschool for him. We looked at West Wind but it was full, and another prospect, a woman starting a new preschool in Mumbai, had to return to New Zealand.
With the days passing and no preschool for Kabir, I decided to start one myself. I wrote to a preschool in New York City to request a curriculum and started hiring teachers in Mumbai. I put the word out and had twenty students right away; and then I had to close the roster. I had a fantastic baby nurse, Sister Pramilla, who kept medical records for all the children (mostly from overseas and so it was really useful), and a local doctor, Dr Balsekar, who would come in to meet the international mothers so they knew him and where his clinic was in case of any emergencies.
With a fantastic curriculum and inspired teachers, I started the International Playschool of Mumbai and it was a very rewarding experience for me, the teachers, the students and the parents as well. There is a funny moment from this period which I absolutely must share with you. The children were picked up at 11.30 a.m. from the preschool every day. On Fridays, we had started noticing that the driveway was crammed with cars from about 10.30 a.m. onwards.
In the beginning, I paid no attention to it, but soon it became clear that many of the nannies and drivers came earlier on Friday as they wanted to meet or get a glimpse or a photo with Vivek Vaswani from Bollywood. Vivek was a classmate of mine from high school and he taught speech and drama every Friday at our preschool! It was quite funny, and even though we requested the cars to arrive only at 11.20 a.m., this routine remained the same over the three years I ran the preschool.
I am in touch with many of the children I taught as well as their parents. They have all gone on to become strong, intelligent members of society. I think of those three years of the International Preschool with great gratitude and pride! Needless to say, those tots kept me constantly on my toes, and I never felt more active or healthier! If there is a lesson here, let it be that there is no shortage of activities we can undertake to stay active. If you can’t find the right one, start it yourself!
