As another yoga day passed and I watched our politicians get into what they think are complicated yoga poses — one cartoonist had them with their head in the sand which seems to be their natural pose — I examined my own relationship with the ancient art.
For years I was a yogagnostic — someone who didn’t believe in yoga or cared if yoga were useful or not, and now I am a yogaddict, likely to strike strange poses while speaking to friends. When did this happen, and more importantly, why did this happen?
I had a friend who could, with a smile on his face, stand on his head and do the splits (not both at the same time, though), and another who could slap the palm of his hand held straight over his head with his foot. Where are they now, I wonder? I suspect it was these two people who put me off yoga. I mean, what they did was dramatic and all that, but I knew there was no way I would ever be able to do those things, so why even try?
In all walks of life, it is the person who does the almost-possible who inspires you, not the consistent doer of the nearly-impossible. It is almost possible to score a goal in football from a corner kick if you are fit, ate your vegetables as a child, did all your homework and practised like the opposite of heaven. But it is near impossible to dribble past half a dozen players and score after gathering the ball in your own half. Maradona did the latter famously in a World Cup match, and thus moved out of the pantheon of the imitable.
Also, I had another issue with yoga. There was too much drama involved. The mat, the pants, the breathing, the warm-up, the guru (live or on a screen), all combined to throw me off.
Then one day it all fell into place. I discovered I liked yoga pants; they were more comfortable than jeans. The mat wasn’t so bad and I had been breathing since I was born so I was nearly there. It was also a wonderful way to avoid running or hiking or lifting weights in the name of fitness.
Soon I discovered the various schools of yoga. Chair yoga, for those who couldn’t be bothered to get into pretzel shapes while standing; bed yoga for those who couldn’t be bothered with chair yoga, bath yoga for those who wanted to dip their toes in the system, staircase yoga so you could take it one step at a time and so on.
I am expecting world peace to break out any time soon: I read somewhere that it is one of the byproducts of the yoga culture. But there’s something else all that twisting and stretching and lunging will lead to. Or so I am told. There is the yogasm to look forward to. The French probably have a word for it.
(Suresh Menon is Contributing Editor, The Hindu)
