An invitation to participate in a beach
walk to promote health is honestly something I never saw myself agree to doing.
#LetsWalk - Beach
Walk, the initiative "your health in your hands" to promote health
and fitness got me out of bed on September 2nd, that too on a Sunday; the day I refuse to get up
early. I landed up at Juhu Beach and found myself enjoying a great morning at the beach and even
more so because I found myself screaming out in joy. Everywhere I turned, I
found a friend was there too and that was truly uplifting and awesome.
The walk was organised by Moushumi Pal founder
of Woodpecker Media, a consulting company
catering to conceptualised events, transformational digital marketing
strategies and creative brand design and Dr. Bhavi Mody, a postgraduate with over two decades of clinical
experience in providing Holistic Healing and Founder and Director at Vrudhi Holistic Health
Care. The event had a
participation of over 150 health enthusiasts, started with a round of Yoga (me
and yoga. Wow! I did that too), was followed by a 2 km walk on the beach. Fun childhood
games such as tug-of-war, passing
the parcel and thumbs-up that we have all played as children were a part of the
event to bring back that magic into their lives.
I
love to interview people and talk to them about their initiatives. so it was
obvious that I found myself interviewing these wonderful ladies live on face
book. Talking to me about the initiative, Moushumi said "We want to touch
lives. We want inclusion. What Dr. Bhavi Mody advocates is making things very
simple to follow, like eat less, sleep less, breathe well, things we forget in
mundane routine of today's life styles we have. Then gradually I started
thinking how can we make it more engaging and that's is why we thought of
organising the first walk. We wanted everyone from all walks of life to come
out in the fresh air. We want to do it at different locations now. First one was
a nature walk and this our second one which is the beach walk."
Dr.
Bhavi Mody adds, "This initiative is to help you stress on little changes
that you can get into your everyday life to make your life more healthy. Mission
#StayHealthyStayHappy is what we believe in. We started out in December last
year. As Moushumi mentioned, the first walk that happened was a nature walk at
Sanjay Gandhi National Park and today we are on the beach. Next who knows
where. Maybe the mountains".
The first walk organised by them was on June
3, 2018. It was an educational 2 km walk around Borivali National Park and I must admit even though I was invited to that one too, I
was just too lazy to get out of bed. What I missed was an opportunity to learn
about various species of flora and fauna along with the environmentalists
there and more importantly an opportunity to click loads of photos (which is my
passion). I am never missing another
walk ever again for sure.
At the end of the walk the participants
were given refreshments and goody bags. Each one of us had been given a T-shirt
too before the walk. Eminent power women
such as Pinky Rajgharhia (Mrs Universe Business lady 2017, Mrs Asia 2017, Mrs
Fitness 2016, Social Activist), Gehna Mehra (Writer & Entrepreneur), Nabomita
Mazumdar (Businesswoman
and Speaker for
Future of Work, HR, Startup, Women and Business, Social media and Technology), Nidhika Bahl (Celebrity Life Coach), Savneet Kaur (Vice Chair, ALL) and Daulatbi Khan (Acid Survivors Saahas Foundation) participated in the walk to
support the initiative.
I must admit that I am not much of a
health freak, but the walk did not help me
to realise the value of being outdoors. I realised that morning, that I had
also bonded and shared so much more with my friends there and even though I
could not walk for long (I have painful knees, you see), it was lovely to be
out breathing in the fresh air. A big thank you to Moushumi for inviting me to
join and cheers to you and your team mates, Ridhi Doshi and Sonu Bajaj for a
well organised event.
I can happily say
that the event was not just #LetsWalk
but a lovely #FriendshipWalk for me and that I am looking forward to the next
one too.
Connect on FB page for joining the next walk:
www.facebook.com/groups/vrudhihwc
