Garnet Gold

There are 4 steps to practising mindfulness meditation. They’re neither easy nor hard. They just are simple things that connect you to the present environment. You’ve to realize that your mind and your body are one. And in order to realize that, you practice mindfulness.

Once you meditate you’ll realise that it isn’t easy. You get distracted. Your mind is a kid and it loves going around and moving around, looking at different things and floating through streams of thoughts at the same time. So, relaxing it can be a little difficult at first. But it isn’t impossible. It took me 2 weeks to get the hang of it. Some people can do it in 2 days and for some it can take 2 months. So there’s no specific time period during which it’s definite that you’ll learn how to practice mindfulness meditation.

Breathe. In the first step, all you’ve to do is breathe in and breathe out. Focus on your breath and try keeping your focus on that. It’ll be tough at first because, like I said, our mind wanders. When you realize that your mind is wandering, just bring it back to the breathing. Don’t curse yourself or your mind for not being able to focus. It’s okay if the mind wants to play around a little. But once you notice it, just gently tell your mind to come back to your breathing.

If the breathing isn’t rhythmic,  it’s okay. Do not force yourself to breathe deeply or to take heavy breaths. No. Just breathe and let try focusing on the fact that you’re breathing. Try saying it in your head “I’m breathing in.. I’m breathing out.”This is the first step.

The second step is to focus on your posture. Feel how your body touches other surfaces and mentally note them.  The purpose is to come back to the present. To feel your body and to recognise your existence. Let your body free while doing this. Don’t choose a stiff position. Relax a little and then start.

Let’s say you’re in your bed and on your back. Notice how your butt is touching the bed. How your back is a little warm because of the continuous contact with the bed. Notice how your feet touch each other and how your calves rest on the bed. Then notice the weight. How your body’s weight is divided. How the elbows feel a little heavy and how your hands rest on your tummy. Feel the weight in your little fingers.

This step isn’t really that hard and helps you appreciate your body, your weight, things that we choose to ignore on the daily.If you’re in a windy place, you can also bring your attention to how the wind touches your skin.

Let’s try these two steps first. If I mention the next two steps, you will try doing them as well and it gets really jumbled up and leads to no good. I know this because I did this for my first entire week.

Please know this. Meditation doesn’t mean getting high and getting away from the world. It isn’t flying in the air and all the stuff that people have turned it into. It’s the opposite of that. It’s bringing your mind back to your body and focusing on your present. It’s about living in the now.

Please let me know how your experience was if you try the first two steps.

Written By: Muskan Pradhan

Anshu has done MBA in Marketing and worked for few years in the corporate domain and moved on to become a Fitness Enthusiast and started own brand called “The Future YOU” in 2017 and is the fastest growing fitness brand in Gurugram.

A MBA corporate employee turned fitness professional after few years of working in the corporate domain.
 She is trained and certified under Reebok in Aerobics, Step Aerobics, Pilates trainer, Zumba Trainer, Master Functional Trainer from FTI Australia, Kettlebell athlete, Trained in Kinesio taping, Pre & Postnatal. 
She has her own studio in M3M Urbana, Sec 67, GGM by the name of “The Future YOU” where they are changing lives of many women in and around the country.

Participated in Mrs India Universe 2018 and was the top ten finalist, Mrs Charity Queen 2018 by Ketto, Mrs Intelligent 2018.
Participated in Kettlebell State Championship and won a Gold Medal.
Participated in Kettlebell National Championship and won a Bronze Medal.
Participate in International Bolt Championship and ranked 5 place.
Fitness trainer to Mrs India I am Beautiful and Mrs Glamorous
Master Pilates Trainer to Go Fitness Academy
Fitness partner to Running Champs League and Young India Sports Academy
In less than a year of operations, have been recognized by a few corporates, beauty pageants and also recognised by athletes world over for the kettlebell sport as an INDIA Athlete
Certified Kettlebell Sport Judge Level 1 with IKLF.

Published By: Garnet&Gold

Ritu Gupta – Founder & CEO Ritz Fitness is an MBA by qualification and after a successful banking career of 8 years gave up her career after motherhood. In her own journey of losing 30 kgs in 1 year she realized her passion for fitness and thereby Ritz Fitness was born Ritu Gupta is certified from YMCA London in ETM and has several other certifications in fitness like Pilates, Functional fitness, Kettlebells, Pad work etc. She has a teaching experience of 8 years in fitness has changed more than 1000 lives. Ritz started with just 2 people and today it has spread across corporates, schools, condominiums, studios, workshops etc.

The fitness philosophy at Ritz is to overcome the repetitive and boring routines that gyms and many other fitness classes provide. At Ritz no 2 days are the same. One day the clients would be working their core with Pilates and the very next day hopping merrily on Zumba. Ritu has managed to create an amalgamated work out regime that draws inspiration from many styles of fitness That’s why Ritz is called “Fun with Fitness.”

Ritz Fitness customizes work outs according to age, body type, work out history, injuries if any and fitness level of the client and provides new workouts and challenges everyday. Ritz has a wide spectrum of client base with ages starting from 12 and going up to 57 and a loyal clientele who have been associated from the inception (8 years) More over equal emphasis is placed on lifestyle and nutrition with regular theme months and theme weeks viz. clean eating month where healthy heating and lifestyle is encouraged along with regular workout. New concepts like Fun Fridays are introduced which are good stress busters for over worked minds.

Ritz fitness has been rated among the best fitness classes in Gurgaon by Google consistently for the past 5 years with more than 100+ reviews and a 5-star rating Ritu Gupta has a vision towards creating health, happy, fit and injury free bodies and making the world a fitter and happier place.

Aditya Arya is a renowned commercial and travel photographer. He began professional photography in 1980 after pursing History from St. Stephens College, Delhi University. After a brief skimp in the Bombay Film Industry he shifted back to Delhi.

His work has been published in many travel magazines and books such as The Land of the Nagas, published by Mapin Publishing. His work can also be seen in the exhibition catalogues of Tejas and The Golden Age of Classical India: The Gupta Empire published in Brussels (Belgium) and Paris (France) respectively. Arya has travelled extensively across the country as a committed documenter of culture and heritage. His momentous work includes the Alchi Monastery in the remote vicinities of Ladakh, where he snapped the magnificent works of Buddhist art from the 12th century AD. Arya is known for his expertise in the field of advertising and corporate photography for the past thirty years. He has also curated many shows on archival and contemporary photography both nationally and internationally.

Over the last few years, he has enhanced his skills and knowledge on preservation, restoration and archiving particularly through the documentation of historic photographic works from the famous KULWANT ROY COLLECTION.  He has played a pivotal role in the formation of India Photo Archive Foundation.

Currently, he divides his time between his photography archive and the only Photography and Camera Museum in India with more than 300 rare and iconic cameras and other equipment tracing the history of photography from the 1870s to the Digital Era.

He was a Director at the Academy for Photographic Excellence (APEX), one of the India’s leading photography academies based in New Delhi. He is also a guest faculty at Jamia Milia University’s Institute of Mass Communication and a Guest Fellow at the prestigious INDIAN INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDY, Shimla. 

Rajshri Singh was born in a small state of Haryana and had started her journey to serve the people at a very young age. As a girl, she was dedicated to value humanity and understood the struggles of the poor. She is known for making the impossible possible!

Rajshri was a part of the Gymnastics’ team of her school for 6 years and later became the captain of the team. She chose to be a doctor as her profession and continued to serve the people. She has done a post graduate diploma in Human Rights, Humanitarian and Refugee Law. She is a second year student pursuing L.L.M from Maharshi Dayanand University and has proved to be a perfect example of the age-old proverb,”Padhne ki koi umar nahi aur Padhne ki koi sharam nahi”.

She got inducted Into IPS in the year 1999. She remained Commandant in 1st IRB, AIG/Traffic, SP Railways, SP Narnaul ,SSP Sirsa, Commandant HAP ,SSP/Crime ,DIG/Crime, Joint CP Faridabad and she is now IG/Crime and IG/Traffic and Highways ,Haryana .

Rajshri is the Founder President of Road Safety Organization and approximately 2500 people from all walks of life voluntarily. She published Road Safety Magazines concerning the urgent need of safety on the roads.

During her tenure, she went for Election Duty in Naxalite infested state Chattisgarh and performed duty without any causality. In Bhopal, she was also a part of Election Duty.  She remained the Election Police observer in Bihar and UP. She had her Election Duty as the Election Observer from police in Karnataka during the recent Lok Sabha Elections. She is the Nodal officer for Student Police Cadet Corps and Raahgiri Programme.

Mr. Vikram Singh Phogat is an Athlete, Winner at Global Powerlifting Alliance & International Poerlifting Organization- Ukraine, Winner at World Powerlifting Congress- Russia, have won silver medal.

He is a 7 times national gold medal in powerlifting, 2 times Strongman of India. Mr. Vikram is a 105 Kg World Strongman Contender. He has won 2 gold medal and 1 silver medal in World Championship in India WPU- World Powerlifting Congress. He has also won 4 time gold medal in National Powerlifting Game.

1. Silver medal in world powerlifting championship Russia
2. Gold medal in world powerlifting championship Ukraine
3. 105 kg world strongman contender Finland
4. 2 Times Strongman of India
5. Gold medal in National strength lifting championship
6. Gold medal in International strength lifting championship
7. Record bench press 220 kg in north india powerlifting championship
8. Mr. haryana strongest men in bench press
9. Record Deadlift 320 kg
10. Record Deadlift 320 kg

Published By:Garnet&Gold

Dr. Roma Kumar’s success-expertise is a rare fusion of intellect, passion and compassion. With a career of over 30 years dedicated to the field of Psychology and Mental Health, Dr. Kumar’s contributions are exemplary. She is a Senior Consultant Psychologist at the Institute of Child Health at Sri Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi since 1991 and at Max Super Specialty Hospital Gurgaon since April 2012.

She has been associated with Delhi Council for Child Welfare, along with various central and state education boards. She has been a visiting faculty in NIPCCD (Delhi) and Amity University. Dr. Kumar has worked closely with Indira Gandhi National Open University [IGNOU] in developing curriculum for its distance learning B.ed program in learning disabilities.

Dr. Kumar has set up the Child Development Clinic and a High Risk New Born Clinic at Sri Ganga Ram Hospital in 1994. She has also set up 3 special schools—2 in Delhi and one in Rewari. She has set up a resource room and an integrated section at a school at Moradabad. She is Chairperson of Association for Development of Multiply Handicapped Children. She is Secretary of Action Dyslexia Delhi-Beyond Education, Secretary-Vatsalya Education and Cultural Society. She is a Life Member of many National and International Scientific Organizations working for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. She has a number of National and International research publications to her credit.

She has undergone training on various mental health problems for children and adolescents at Toronto, Canada; San Diego, California, USA.

She is Founder Director of SAKSHAM, which is Child and Adolescent Guidance Clinic and caters to all mental health problems of adults also.

Ashma was born with a heart condition, she had four defects in her heart. Due to which, she spent her entire childhood moving from one hospital to another. This forced her to live a very restricted and limited life. She was only allowed to attend school, which too, came with several limitations. She was disallowed to take up science in the 11th grade by her doctors as they believed she could not handle the stress, thereby ending her dream of becoming a doctor and helping others like her. Her limited freedom was further curtailed by the fact that she started developing health complications and was advised by her doctors to either go in for a surgery with minimal chances of survival or to slowly get paralyzed and eventually die. Her parents chose to fight on and opted to get her operated in the United States in 1980. And although this surgery was physically and mentally taxing, it gave her new hope. Her hardships made her emotionally and mentally stronger, and she chose to not let her medical disabilities define who she was. She strived to prove herself to the world.

Her medical setbacks forced her to take a different path in order to achieve success in her life, which in turn has given her a diverse background with vast knowledge in several fields of work. A former hotelier with the Hyatt Regency Delhi, she has extensive experience in the hospitality and service sector. However, her experience is not only limited to the hospitality sector, she also has a vast knowledge in the office Automation business including the nuances, procedures and different approaches required in setting up various businesses. Always striving to achieve excellence, she chose to partner with Moser Baer in 1987 and became the first female distributor in the automation industry. In 1996, she joined RA Santana Marketing Services (P) Ltd, a niche marketing firm that specializes in high-end gadgets and telemedia solutions, as the Director of Sales. It was during her stint here, that she was approached by Hindustan Unilever in (2006) to propagate Ayurveda Business in Gurgaon with a special focus on the corporate world by addressing to their specific requirements.

Her background in the corporate world along with her childhood desire to help people with medical ailments, helped make her Ayurvedic Center, Ayush Gurgaon, a phenomenal success. Within a span of six months, under the leadership of Ashma, Ayush Gurgaon was declared to be a role model for Ayush Therapy Centers across India by Hindustan Unilever. She has also successfully set up the brand “Anammyaa Wellness, a way to good health,” which is committed to provide quality services in wellness by reviving Ayurveda across India with centers in Gurgaon and more launching pan India. “Anammyaa Wellness for me is my temple, where I strive to provide holistic wellness. Eleven years in Ayurveda,my mission of life is now to revive Ayurvedic therapies which are slowly getting extinct, and being wiped out from the medical memoirs. Ayurveda , being an Ancient Indian Science,today is being wrongly used by various practitioners for their own business interests. My vision is to bring Ayurveda to the masses which means an experience of Mind, Body & Soul.”- Ashma Khanna

Ashma has spent considerable efforts to spread awareness and benefits of Ayurveda, by organizing various workshops in Delhi University in collaboration with Sindhu Srijan NGO. Here the students are introduced to Ayurveda; its origination, the scientific facts and proven theories over thousands of years and how our forefathers cultivated this knowledge for the welfare of human life, and how eventually it faded into insignificance due to the impact of western world and advent of modern pharmaceutical companies.

Not only this, workshops are organized at her own centre Anammyaa Wellness once every month on Mondays & Thursdays specifically for Japanese and Korean students where introduction to Ayurveda and its ancient remedies are shared and showcased. Some of these students then go on to enroll for the advanced courses in Ayurveda which are taught by her empaneled Ayurveda Vaidyas.

Ashma has been awarded various excellence awards for her contributions to the world of Ayurveda. Some of these awards & honors are:

 Indian Icon 2013 for Ayurveda by PARWAZ Express Group.

 Awarded by Ministry Of South Korea for Ayurveda in October 2013. She was invited to represent India in the Festival of World Traditional Medicine held at Sanchong South Korea. She was honored on Women’s Day by Sashakst Nari Parishad for her contribution in the world of Ayurveda.

 Jury member of ICON 2014

 Aaj ki Delhi recognized her with the Award for Ayurveda 2014

 Sashakst Nari Parishad Award 2015 & 2016

 Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Award 2016 & 2017

 Woman’s excellence award 2017

 Bharat Gaurav Samman Award 2017

 Rajiv Gandhi Global Excellence award 2017 2017-2018 Two books for launched on Ashma’s life story (1)Weaving Dreams into Reality,Inspiring Women (2) Garden Of Life.

 2019 Women Of Influence Award

Ashma has also done a series of episodes by Care World Channel to promote and connect the current generation with Ayurveda. Ashma has launched a brand For Your Health wherein 300 outlets would be franchised across India by 2021 selling all Ayurvedic Herbs in its natural form for Medical Diseases, Beauty and Wellness. The vision of the brand being creating a chemical free world.Ashma is aggressively working on Cancer cure through Ayurveda and is successfully treating across the globe

Published By:Garnet&Gold

Tarun Thakral started his career in the Hospitality business in 1986 after completing his Diploma in Hotel Management from Madras. He won the French Government scholarship in 1990 to pursue a two year full time MBA program in International Hospitality Management from ‘Institut de Hotelier Management International’, Paris. Currently he is the COO at CJ International Hotels Ltd, New Delhi that owns and manages the prestigious hotel “Le Meridien” in New Delhi.

He founded the Heritage Transportation Trust (HTT) in 1996, a registered non-profit foundation to promote the preservation of modes of transportation that have been used in India to pursue his love for vintage and classic cars. HTT developed the India’s first Transport Museum, Heritage Transport Museum, which was accessible to public in December 2013.

Since its opening the museum has won many prestigious awards – The National Tourism Award for being the most innovative and unique tourism project in the country, the 2016 and 2018 Travellers Choice Award by TripAdvisor, International PATWA award for innovation at ITB, Germany, the BITB Tourism Excellence Award, SATTE Tourism Award for innovation, and more.

Published By: Garnet&Gold

Osho Kalia still recalls a disturbing encounter when he watched a short film, ‘The Plastic Cow’ which entailed the painful sight of 50 kilos of toxic plastic being removed from its gut which left a scar on his mind. He also visited the cowsheds around Gurgaon and interacted with caretakers only to find out that they get a minimum of two or three cows full of plastic, which then had to be operated upon to save them painful deaths. This made him realise the urgent need to end this menace before it ends all other resources including us. Hence, he decided to quit a successful career in Human Resources at IBM in 2011 and join the social sector.

Osho ideated and launched the ‘No to Polythene and yes to Cloth Bags’ campaign which introduced Cloth Bags which was sustainable and environmentally friendly. At that time, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG), had declared ban on plastic. This lead to the shortage of plastic bags around the area.  

Osho has been canvassing non-stop across markets and stores for last 2.5 years getting them to stop using Polythene and instead give supplies in these Cloth Bags. Over 2.5 lakh bags have been released in the market this way by him.

These plastics bags were made by the prison inmates of Gurugram Jail. Various textiles companies supported to ensure that there is no shortage of cloth. This also employed women who were homemakers in different parts of the country. He has visited over 30 schools for talks on Polythene to spread awareness and create champions.

Osho then co-founded Geeli Mitti Foundation last year and now the campaign has spread to 7 states (present in Kashmir, Ghaziabad, Ranchi, Jharkhand, Gurgaon, Nainital, Bhopal) where financially unempowered women are provided sewing machines and they stitch cloth bags as a source of income and empowerment. They also made one of the artistic Cob Homes, built by master woodworkers Lisa and Rich.

Published By:Garnet n Gold