Gobind Singh is an alumni who visited MPA earlier this month, while leading a yatra. Here’s what he had to say when we caught up:
I graduated from MPA in 2011 after attending for six years. After I graduated, I wanted to get some work experience before I went back to school. I started teaching English, working in the office there and teaching yoga. I teach yoga at my family’s yoga center. We host retreats and sometimes I teach bhangra and gatka, as well as Kundalini yoga. I also regularly teach in the city of San Paulo.
I feel that many of the things that I learned at MPA have served me well. Music, yoga, the cultural things like bhangra and gatka, were all good to learn. They added a lot to me in the sense that I don’t feel I need to be a certain way. I like to be different. I think it’s really cool to be able to stand out and be whatever you want to be.
Coming here now and joining the kids for seva, I remember how fun it was doing seva together. We would turn it into a game; trying to get as many buckets as we could. The parkarma seva is cool in that the whole community gets to do that together; MPA students along with those from India too. It’s a rich cultural experience; a point where we can really be together.
I really love this country. Every time I come back I feel it’s a complete, new and different experience. And I wouldn’t have had that opportunity if I hadn’t come to school here. When I came in 2013, it was the first time I’d been to India since I graduated and it was a completely different experience; just as valid and just as good as the first one but very different. I think that would be an interesting thing for everyone to try to do; to come back here on their own. And of course it brings back memories of school time. Coming back this time, it wasn’t as impactful as the first time, but it’s still just as nice and as we would say in Portugese, ‘Matar a saudade,’ which means to end the feeling of missing the place.
