Isha Golf Jaunt 2017
Golfers at Willingdon Golf Club, Mumbai, and Royal Calcutta Golf Club, Kolkata, were pleasantly surprised last month to see men, women and children standing silently at each hole, and holding a placard that read ‘Isha Vidhya’. For it was a special occasion – the Golf Jaunt.
Organised by Sadhguru and Isha Foundation, Golf Jaunt aims to make a difference in the lives of India’s most underprivileged rural children. It was the 6th edition of Isha Golf Jaunt in Mumbai, which saw 80 golfers tee off, and the very first in Kolkata, where 88 turned up.
The event sees elite golfers – including pro golfers, Bollywood actors, bureaucrats, business leaders and cricketers to name a few – play a game of golf with Sadhguru himself and proceeds raised go towards sponsoring children’s education at Isha Vidhya schools.
Seeing the pressing need for quality education in rural India, Sadhguru started Isha Vidhya 11 years ago in Tamil Nadu. Since then, Isha Vidhya has grown leaps and bounds under the mystic’s leadership and is currently supporting over 3,000 government schools in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, directly benefiting over 150,000 students. Isha Vidhya also runs its own schools, 9 of them in all, which benefit over 7,800 students. But “that’s just a drop in the ocean,” according to Sadhguru.
“The plight of millions of these rural Indian children is heart-wrenching. Isha Vidhya has made a difference in the lives of several thousand of such children, most of whom are first-generation school-goers,” says the yogi whose golf skill is the envy of many a golfer.
“It’s is one of the finest initiatives that would take the country to the next level,” opined S. Sampath Kumar, Senior Executive Vice President at HDFC. Even non-golfers lauded the initiative.
(Read more in the January issue of Golf Digest India. Download here.)