India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. ANI
New Delhi: With three records in hand, including as the world’s youngest yoga instructor, seven-year-old Praanvi Gupta is setting her sights on a new feat — training with one of the most famous yogis, the Indian prime minister.
Gupta began learning yoga at the age of 3. When the family moved from New Delhi to Dubai four years ago, she started attending yoga classes.
Gupta has completed a 200-hour course to be certified by Yoga Alliance, the largest nonprofit organization representing yoga teachers.
In late November 2022, Gupta has been verified by Guinness World Records as the youngest yoga instructor at 7 years and 165 days old, beating Reyansh Surani, who was 9 years and 220 days old when he received his certification in 2021.
“I really feel proud and excited that nobody at this age has made it,” she told Arab News. “I know that yoga is beneficial. I want to spread this word that everyone should practice yoga and children should practice it.”
Gupta already knows what she wants to do next. She wants to write a yoga book for children and meet India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an avid yoga practitioner, who has been promoting the discipline at home and abroad.
“I want to do yoga with him someday,” Gupta said. “I heard that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a big yoga enthusiast, and he loves yoga.”
Gupta’s formal yoga education began at the Vedic Yoga Center in Dubai, under the supervision of the trainer and educator Vincent Earth Kottayil, who encouraged her to enrol in a course for instructors.
Kottayil said that he has been teaching yoga for the past 25 years and thought that she had some inborn qualities for yoga.
“She was showing extra talent in yoga and showing enthusiasm to know more about yoga. I suggested that she join the yoga teachers’ training course, and she completed the course very successfully,” Kottayil added.
Yoga is not the only discipline in which Gupta has been winning laurels. She already has several records and medals in other fields, both physical and academic.
Her father, Pramod, said that he is “super proud” of her achievements.
“She likes challenges. Whenever you challenge her to something, she’ll just learn that thing quickly,” Gupta’s mother, Priyanka Sengar, the founder and CEO of Women First Jobs, an organization that aims to close gender disparity in employment, told Arab News.
Sengar is aware of her daughter’s talent for yoga and has also nurtured her interest in books.
But neither of Gupta’s parents is trying to plan the future for her.
“We just support her; whatever she dreams, we just support her,” Sengar said.
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