I always wanted to win an Oscar. You see, with the amount of theatrics and drama I loved to incorporate in daily life as a child, it is no great surprise to want to be recognised by the most prestigious from across the globe. I found several expression grounds, dancing from age five and acting from age 13. I never thought of it as challenging for it is what I did best until…
I chose to portray the role of Kannagi (despite being a dancer and offered the role of Madhavi) in Upasana, a Hindi television serial based on the Tamil twin classics Silappadhikaram & Manimegalai, produced by Krishnaswamy Associates. Silambuchelvar Dr.Ma.Po.Si was the subject consultant – not just an expert but a huge devotee of the classic for he named his two daughters Kannagi and Madhavi. On the very first day of filming, Dr.Ma.Po.Si called me aside to say ‘I was informed that you are going to be acting as Kannagi. Well, good luck but I don’t think any person can even come close to portraying her!’ I literally took a step back. He had just told me I wasn’t good enough. I almost wanted to step away from the production. But some where the inner joy I derived from drama kept me going. But that incident sowed the seeds for my oscar moment…
Several months later on the first screening of a few episodes from the serial, Dr. Ma Po Si watched my portrayal of the scene of Kovalan’s return to Kannagi after 12 long years of separation. With glistering eyes, he looked at me and said “Kannagi refers to one who can emote with her eyes. After seeing this I wonder if even the original Kannagi had eyes as expressive as yours.” At that moment it struck me, recognition is never about feeling in certain ways. It is about how many people you take with you to feel in those ways. Over the next 20 years I have had several such Oscar moments, be it a tear in response to my direction, a laughter in response to my acting or a divine moment like when the doyen on Carnatic Indian music Smt.M.S.Subbulakshmi stood up with folded palms at the conclusion of my dance portraying Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri. An Oscar is not given in recognition of you feeling in a certain way but is given to those who are able to translate that artistically, triggering those emotions in so many many others. And every one of us have it in us to experience those oscar moments in life… to make others feel with our feelings.
Nobel prize was something I was in awe of all my childhood. I didn’t think I was good enough to understand even basic principles of so many intellectual concepts, never tried to follow the knowledge banks, never even attempted to comprehend its use. I just remained fascinated in a distant sort of way. When my daughter went to grade 6 in 2007, my mother casually told her as part of a conversation, ‘Don’t be like your mother and avoid Science!’ Something within me whimpered. Was I incapable of understanding scientific thought? After a year of self learning, reading every scientific journal written for the non-scientist, on 24th August 2008, I sat and wrote four articles back to back and mailed them all to my revered Guru Mahatria. Within a few hours I got a reply
Dear Gita,
Read your article on ‘When science met God’ with a smile. Not just this article, so much about you and thoughts of you brings a smile on my face. Like Science and God – not everybody will understand you and those who do cannot but cherish you.
Loving you so much.
Mahatria
Several years have gone by, sixty eight articles under the series, each exploring another avenue of human intellectual pursuit… But that day 24th August 2008 at 8.34 pm I experienced my first Nobel prize moment. My divine Guru made me realise it wasn’t about ‘knowing’ enough to be recognised with an award but ‘sharing’ enough knowledge to contribute greater clarity on the little things you may know a little more about than some one else. Several such Nobel moments including being invited to present a poster on the science of knowing at the Science and Non-Duality conference, USA in 2017 where a theoretical physicist was so much in wonder and to an extent disbelief on my presentation with the words ‘you have put in words what I’m proving with numbers’, lingers in me resonating the applause of a million hands!
Many a brilliant thought has vanished into thin air with lack of clarity to share with another fellow human being. Nobel prize winners are those who not merely have those path breaking thoughts but those who are capable of sharing, even if only to a limited few, the sheer magnificence of their greater understanding. And every one of us have it in us to experience those Nobel prize moments…to make others understand the clarity of our thoughts.
If Oscar was an aspiration and Nobel a mere fantasy, Olympics never featured in my thought process. Period. I am not a sports person and have never been even remotely following any sport. My entire exposure has been through performing arts. Suddenly in 2009 I had to rise up to a challenge of taking charge as CEO of Maverick Fitness studios. I didn’t know anything about fitness. I was fit – thanks to my dance. But I had never bothered to explore in any great depth either fitness concepts nor sports related pursuits. In August 2009, as part of my research for my series ‘When Science met God’ I read a lot about the different responses generated by our autonomic nervous system to strength conditioning and yoga. On the midnight of October 7th, I was given the responsibility to take charge as CEO. Within one year I completed five international certifications, within two, became a holistic lifestyle coach from US and within three, India’s first Metabolic typing advisor from UK. But all that was on paper. Was I fit? Dancing had laid the foundation but it was through strength training that I discovered the sheer magical ways of the body. Seven years of lifting weight and I can guarantee nothing is more addictive than exercising.
On August 31st 2013, as we celebrated the 10th anniversary of Maverick, Krishnaraj expressed his dream. He wanted to do a fitness program for kids, some way by which we could contribute to the health and wellbeing of children. By June 2014 we were in schools with our Maverick Fit Kids physical literacy program. It has been a very gratifying journey designing every aspect of Maverick Fit Kids curriculum. In April 2016, I attended the East Asian regional council of schools conference in Manila on ‘Innovating arts and motion’. The focus was on building a physically literacy informed next generation.
‘Literacy’ is defined as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about the written word. It is considered important for the development of children. ‘Physical Literacy’ refers to the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to take responsibility and stay commitment to be active for life. It begins with teaching children to move with confidence and competence in a wide variety of activities and environments developing them as a whole person. When you buy a new gadget, it comes with a user manual on features and functionality. And yet we have never bothered to truly experientially understand the miraculous workings of the greatest piece of functional art – our body! Physical literacy will enable our children to be healthy, active and respectful of their whole selves and others for life. This can only be achieved from learning the fundamental movement skills in a structured and fun way as a child and treating the child as a whole enriching their physical, affective and cognitive domains with exposure to a wide variety of activities.
My interactions at the EARCOS was both gratifying and inspiring – gratifying to know we were already on track as physical educators both in terms of science and implementation to promote physical literacy in India and inspiring to see 800 delegates from across the globe willing to brain storm, learn, motivate and together create the foundations for physical literacy for our children. One of the concepts discussed was how to make exercise a reward rather than a punishment. Rather than ‘punishing’ the wrong action with a jog around the playground, can we make that a reward – right action will earn you extra time in PE.
It is a ground rule in the Maverick Fit Kids program that no child will be forced to exercise. I always say our role is to motivate and inspire them to voluntarily participate in the activity and never to thrust it upon them. We have children lining up wanting to be part of the session, not wanting to miss school on the days they have our session and many a child unwilling to miss our session on account of any minor illness.
This morning as I was training new teachers for the forthcoming academic year, one of the new trainees asked me ‘how do we keep the naughty ones in check during a session?’ Another trainer who has been executing our program for two years replied, ‘I simply tell them if you are not disciplined, you cannot participate in the session. That immediately brings back the discipline.’ I felt like I just won the Olympics! What was discussed as a probable concept to be evolved at EARCOS, is already in practice with us. The reward of right behaviour is an opportunity to enhance physical literacy! Participating in our program was considered a reward by children for right behaviour! No more using ‘exercise’ as a form of punishment. We have already begun reversing the psychology.
The Olympic medal is given for personal success – the ability to surpass our own expectations from our physical limitations. But in that very process, they set new records of shifting the bar on expectations. I may not be an Olympic champion but with every child that grows more physically aware and surpass their own physical limitations, I feel like I receive an Olympic award. And every one of us have it in us to experience those Olympics moments…to make others become more physically literate by honouring our own bodies with the reward of physical activity rather than the punishment of inaction.
Oh! I think I forgot to mention the Booker prize… Never mind! If you read this, I just nailed the Booker…
Written by Gita Krishna Raj on 18th April 2016 (with an update in October 2017)
