44-year-old poised to realise his dream of working as a yoga prof
At the age of 44, when many stop chasing their dreams, Ram Kishore has given wings to his ambition of working as a yoga professor at a university. He is among the four candidates from the city who have qualified the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) national eligibility test (NET) in yoga.
“After post graduating in yoga, I started working as an instructor at DRDO. But my aim was to become a yoga professor. So, I came back to LU, and joined the PhD course here to conduct research on the subject,” says Ram Kishore.
His thesis was on ‘Philosophical analysis of sadness in reference to Buddha - Sankhya Yoga and Geeta’. “My mentor, Prof Kalicharan Pandey of the department of philosophy, always motivated me. He not only supported me in my research, but also helped me in preparing for NET.”
This is the first time that NET was organised for yoga.
Around 4,500 candidates applied for the examination organised at 1,421 centres in 90 cities across the country. Out of these, 353 candidates qualified the test.
There’s a common thread to all the successful candidates from the city - Anjani Kumar Dubey, Vinod Kumar Tewari and Raj Kumar Chaurasia, apart from Ram Kishore. All are MA in ‘Yoga and Human Consciousness’ from Lucknow University, and all are around the same age.
Anjani Kumar Dubey says, “We qualified NET without any kind of coaching. My experiences of teaching yoga at Raj Bhavan, PAC, the Judicial Training Institute, and other places helped me get a high score.”
He says there’s nothing big in cracking NET. “But, what does make for a big deal is for a yoga student to be able to pursue a career in his field.”
“So far, yoga instructors have not been given the due respect. They are often confused with physical trainers. I feel sad when people equate us with physiotherapists. But now with universities appointing yoga professors, this science is sure to witness more research. Eventually, people will start understanding and appreciating the contributions of yoga experts,” says Dubey.
After post graduating in yoga, I started working as an instructor at DRDO. But my aim was to become a yoga professor. So, I came back to LU, and joined the PhD course here to conduct research on the subject RAM KISHORE, yoga expert