On the 21st of June, the same day as the Summer Solstice, the world observes International Yoga Day.
This is not a coincidence. Yoga was proposed as a global observance by India, and the solstice was chosen because in the yogic tradition, the summer solstice is Dakshinayana, the beginning of the southward journey of the sun. It is a period of heightened spiritual significance, a time when the distance between the seeker and the sought is, by ancient reckoning, at its narrowest.
We mention this not to give a lecture, but because these kinds of connections, between a practice and the calendar, between the body and the season, between what we eat and how we feel, are the water Namaste Village has always swum in, whether or not we have always named them.
What is yoga when it is not a mat?
Yoga in its broad and original sense is not a fitness class. The asanas, or physical postures, are one branch of a tradition with eight limbs. The first two have nothing to do with the body at all. They are yama, which covers ethical principles including ahimsa or non-violence, and niyama, which covers personal observances including shaucha meaning purity and santosha meaning contentment.
Before there is a body practice, there is a way of being in the world. And central to that way of being is the question of what you eat. In the yogic tradition, as in Ayurveda, as in the Vaishnav and Jain traditions that shaped Urmila's cooking, what you consume is not separate from the life you are trying to live. It is part of it. Satvik food, which is pure, clean, and free of excessive stimulation, is the food associated with the yogic path. It is also, without any deliberate planning on our part, the food of most of our menu.
What does Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam mean and why does it matter?
June is Pride Month, and in the middle of it we want to say something that is genuinely ours to say rather than a sentiment borrowed from a trend.
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. In Sanskrit: the world is one family. A phrase from the Maha Upanishad, composed roughly 1,500 years ago. It is not a modern inclusion statement. It is an ancient metaphysical claim: that the boundaries between us, national, social, religious, and any other kind, are real in the way that lines on a map are real. Useful for navigation. Not actually there in the ground.
This is the principle that Namaste Village's understanding of hospitality rests on. Atithi Devo Bhava, the guest is God, does not ask: which guest? It says: the guest. Every person who arrives at the door is the divine, in human form. This has not changed across fifteen years and six restaurants in Norwich, Cambridge, London, Twickenham, and Oxford.
We are not going to dress the windows in a particular colour to prove this. The proof is at the table, and it has been there since the beginning. Every background, every identity, every person who has wondered whether a space was built for them: this one was. It always has been.
Come as you are
International Yoga Day, Summer Solstice, Pride Month. Three different occasions in the same week that are, at their root, saying the same thing: life is better when we are connected to ourselves, to each other, and to something larger than the schedule.
We have a table for that. We have had one since 2010.
Namaste Village across Norwich, Cambridge, London Islington, Twickenham, and Oxford. The door has been open since 2010. It will still be open when you are ready.
THE KITCHEN DIARIES
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