Anu Aggarwal, the 90s phenomenon, joins us as a special guest for our weekly special edition of Community Wise, The Pioneer, as we discuss her experience with self-healing and how it has inspired efforts to repair people’s brains.
Tejal Sinha
Life is so unpredictable that you never know what’s coming next for you, isn’t it? Well, similar was it with actress and yogi guru Anu Aggarwal, who has been popularly known as the Aashiqui girl to date. The actress, who became an overnight sensation with the Mahesh Bhatt-helmed film Aashiqui, also went through that one tragic night which has just changed her life, and for the better.
But did you know? Even before she made a name in the pageant and the showbiz world, she was very much involved in social work.
Well, yes, we hear this exclusively from the yesteryear star over a Zoom interaction for our special weekly segment of Community Wise. In this chat with
The Pioneer, she takes us through how her near-fatal accident turned into a self-healing journey, how her social work zeal never went off, leading to the Anu Aggarwal Foundation and much more.
While people often term the major changing incident in her life as an ‘accident’, she has a different point of view on it: “I don’t feel that as an accident because life in itself has been full of accidents. I feel leaving social work and joining movies was an accident! So this accident that led to the physical and mental breakdown that I had was the one that nearly killed me. People called it an awakening. But, I got to live on the other side of life. I realised that more than anything else, people on earth need to live and enjoy, there’s so much disturbance, and it’s only increasing in the world.” During this phase of her life, she also reaslised how essential it was to calm the mind and just look out for ourselves and the best of ourselves. It was also the time when she became a yoga therapist and healed herself. But that was not something that was all for her. That humanatarian bug within her knew that now was the time she could also heal the world. Turning her compassion into action, she founded the Anu Aggarwal Foundation in 2014 and got registered in 2017!
Although, even before the foundation was set up, she was already working on Anu Fun Yoga, which deals with your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health and she also added environmental and financial aspects.
“We need to become aware of things around us so that we can sharpen ourselves and live a better life; and that’s why I created the Anu Foundation. I started getting invited to conferences around the world. In the west, I was working with the slums and it’s a huge thing, you know. Slumdog Millionaire highlighted it so well. My idea was to make happy ‘slumdom millionaires’, not just in terms of money; but a millionaire is mental strength that helps you be happy no matter what your circumstances are.”
The name was initially AAF; it happened to also be Anu Aggarwal, but her idea of it was A for Awake, A for Aware, and F for Fit. People think of fitness as physical, but fitness is also mental and emotional.
Taking us through her social cause journey, she continues to highlight, “I was always a social worker; my study has been in social work and that’s what I set out to do. I was a United Nations refugee; I was an ambassador and volunteer with them and worked for Afghan refugees at that time. I also think becoming a monk and getting into yoga made me a ‘Sanyasan’.”
She thinks that the majority of issues start in the mind. “Now that I’m talking about it, let me tell you, my entire healing is mind-based because my body was broken—half-paralysed, skull and body were fractured, and a lot more,” she said, symbolising her realisation.
“My body was not functioning physically. The physicians had also lost hope. My whole healing process started with my willingness; it’s as if you visualise yourself in a particular manner and everything work out that way to help you realise your dreams. My goal was to get well, and I teach Anu Funs and my foundation certain strategies to help with that.”
How many of the people we see working for the poor’s welfare also attend to their mental health? Well, that was the question she concentrated on as well, and aside from other endeavours, that has also been the primary focus of her organisation! “Half of the population in India lives below the poverty line and doesn’t eat more than twice a day. Along with the other primary and tertiary demands, there are basic needs such as “Roti, Kapda, and Makaan.” The necessities cannot be lived without, but the rest can. Therefore, I think that when working for the welfare of those who are less fortunate, it is important to draw from personal experience and healing. ‘What about the mental training and how to handle it?’ I asked someone who was in charge of delivering sanitary kits the other day. My own school as a whole are full of girls who have cramps. I was explaining to her about the concept of menstruation in yoga and a hypothesis that links menstruation to the lunar cycle. You can reduce the dosage of any drug.”
She claims that empowerment is ultimately primarily mental, therefore the foundation functions on a variety of levels.
Making yoga a central component of both her life and the foundation, we learn that she played a significant role in the creation of World Yoga Day in 2014! She adds that things have evolved over time in terms of awareness of a certain issue.
Stressing the importance of mindfulness, she states, “Yoga is not something distinct; people think yoga is some ‘asanas’ and ‘pranayamas.’ When yoga was first developed, it was primarily focused on the mind. There used to be a lot of physical activity, but now days everyone works in front of a desk. As there aren’t many activities these days, ‘asanas’ are crucial. Yoga is a prudent mental attitude that needs to be developed.”
AAF is also aiming to bring about inner peace and improved mental health using a holistic and sustainable strategy since she believes in assisting as many people as she can. And using this strategy, the foundation hopes to promote women’s empowerment, enhance livelihood, increase mental health awareness, foster happiness, prevent suicide, and more!
