Winning the hearts and minds of the young and innocent, or even adults is something that Tokyo-based motivational speaker; yoga and meditation expert Nupur Tewari loves doing with all the passion at her command.

Recently she undertook a trip to the Kashmir Valley to deliver a special talk on the topic “Finding the Purpose of Life” to students of the Sri Pratap College in Srinagar. She left her audience mesmerized and inspired by her motivational address that took vignettes from her personal experiences to make everyone believe that rejections can be converted to one’s advantage with determination.
She stressed upon the fact that the students of Sri Pratap College, or people in any other walk of life can make their lives better “if we invest in our inner lives rather than on money and machines”.
She spoke of the need to invest in peace and harmony and emphasized the importance of using the “power of the mind to bring about the much needed changes in our lives”.
The two-hour-long speech overwhelmed the young Kashmiri students, so much so that they waxed eloquent about her qualities, both as a teacher and as a motivational speaker.
One girl student said: “Ma’am you are my inspiration and this session was amazing. It’s very nice and now I want to achieve my own goals and know how to do something and all. Thank you so much.”
A second girl student said: “This session was amazing, I loved it. I loved the way you teach, the way you explain and everything. Next year, I want you to be my class teacher and for sure I’ll study a lot. I’ll try to be like you and if you do become my teacher, I’ll never go home; I’ll stay in the school with you and listen to you every day, every single hour, every single minute. I’ll not skip my classes at all.”
A third girl student when asked by Nupur as to why she wanted her (Nupur) to come so soon, she (the student) replied: “Because you are so inspirational. You are actually the first speaker I have got motivated by.”
A boy said:” This is the first session we have liked on home counselling. We have had a lot of counselling sessions, but this one was the most enjoyable.
Several other girl students chipped in and said: “We loved the session. All the sessions before your session, we said, 'okay, okay, its fine, we understand,' but your session was a blast. We just loved it. We don’t want it to just go away; we don’t want you to go away, we want you to stay here with us.”
Another student revealed, “Ma’am, I wanted to skip this session because I thought it was boring, it was motivation, but when I came here. I just felt ‘Wow, she’s awesome’”. Another said: “I was going to sleep during the session…”
All the girls said in unison, “thank you so much, please come again to the school to motivate us; it was a joy.”
Participating in a radio programme some time back, Nupur, tracing her journey in life, said: “As a student, I had to walk to a school that was four kilometers away from my home. There was no road. It was particularly difficult during the monsoon season, the road was full of muddy slush and we used to wear chappals (slippers). There were many occasions when I had to abandon my chappals and come home barefoot.”
Hailing from the small village of Pratappur in West Bengal’s Murshidabad District, Nupur Tewari was born and brought up there. Moving to Japan more than two decades ago, Nupur today is the founder of “Heal Tokyo”, a yoga and meditation programme, which has acquired a huge following and popularity for providing the healing touch to tens of thousands of people who are facing stress in their lives.
She uses the money that she earns from these training sessions to help children in India, in dire need, to get an education. She is building schools; in fact, one has already come up in Aligarh. She also has the distinction of being an inner transformation and mindfulness coach. Over time, she has acquired fame both as a motivational speaker and as a yoga and meditation practitioner.
Talking of her family, she said: “My family is very traditional. We were zamindars of the village; we had a lot of land there. As a family, we laid great emphasis on education, we were motivated to acquire it the traditional way, and we were very traditional and humble; donated a lot to charity, believed in giving equal treatment to all people who came in contact with us. My parents, who are no longer alive, gave us good values and life lessons; placed the seed of inquisitiveness and knowledge in us. The credit goes entirely to them for what I am today. They would be very proud of what I am doing and what I have achieved. I still feel their presence and that they are smiling with me.”
Recalling the first time she took a flight, Tewari laughingly said: “I boarded a plane and flew… when I saw the clouds, I felt they were talking to me.”
Explaining the background of her journey from Murshidabad to Tokyo, Nupur reveals that it was actually a twist of fate and luck. She says there was a company in the hospitality sector that had advertised for temporary vacancy because one of their staff had gone on leave for a month.
“I called to enquire about the vacant position and they told me if I wanted to join I could come. I went home and in a very emotional and determined sort of way told my mother 'this is it and I am going; I did not have the courage to tell the others in the family though. All my mother said was ‘Ja’ (Go). That ‘Ja’ was the turning point in my life.”
Nupur further informs that she has had her fair share of struggles to reach where she is today, but adds that if it helps others to aspire and strive for excellence, it would satisfy her immensely.
“Corporate life was tough. I was dealing with people who were in their late 30’s, 40’s and above. I just concentrated on my job and responsibilities. I earned well, in fact, I earned better than many of my other colleagues because the management appreciated and acknowledged the work I was doing. My colleagues became jealous; there was a lot of anger and heartburn among them and they were always looking for opportunities to harass, abuse and humiliate me. There was this one instance when I was in the procurement department and I asked the inspecting officer, a colleague, who I thought was a nice bloke, whether a particular job had been completed. He turned around and smirkly said, ‘what do you think, are we here to do your bidding, your job’ and abused me. There were 200 people there when this happened and all were expressionless, none came to my defence. It was as if they wanted this to happen to me. At that point, I felt like Draupadi felt when she was being disrobed in the main hall of the king’s palace all those thousands of years ago. Somewhere in my mind I was thinking of my father and from somewhere that Vedic chant ‘Ya Devi Sarvebhuteshu Vishnumayati shabdita, Namastasya, Namastasya’ engulfed my whole being. I just grabbed that colleague’s shirt by the collar, slapped him and walked out. It left everyone stunned… That was it, from there I just said to myself that I won’t subject myself to any kind of negativity from any quarter and moved ahead in a positive manner.
A couple of months back, Nupur visited several Indian cities to hard sell the concept of doing business with Japan, which is focusing on outsourcing material from other countries. The Japanese, she said, believe in “growing together – as an individual, as a team, as an organisation and as a country. We need to imbibe such values of growing together.”
“We will have to ensure quality. We are new India, a new generation. We need to be brave and innovative…. We need to grow as a nation,” she said then.
India certainly needs inspirational personalities like Nupur Tewari to inspire Gen Next.