Friday, April 29, 2016

Y for Yoga

I was 5 years old when I was enrolled into the “best” yoga program in the city, because my child specialist had suggested yoga would help increase my immunity level. 

I kind of liked the location. It had a huge idol of Patanjali, a sage who compiled Yoga sutras in the ancient past. The idol was right next to a tree towering over it which showered fragrant flowers right on top of the idol, and the whole scene was nothing short of serene. And the place inside had multiple yoga rooms with individual sessions. Well, they weren’t really rooms, to be fair to the beauty of the place, and the lack of vocabulary creativity within me. They were small hutments with thatched roofs, off shoots littered across the property, and each one had a dedicated Yoga teacher imparting the knowledge of Yoga to young and old, man and woman. The place was largely silent, true to the spirit of the Yoga taught there, and it might have given any meditation center of today a run for the money.

I was assigned to this menacing lady who was (and hopefully still is) extremely committed to the cause of Yoga. She wouldn’t wear a smile on her face, but her asanas were perfection. And, I would work hard just to please her, because what better joy can there be than pleasing the best in the trade. It didn’t matter that she was all of 16 and 5 feet tall. The confidence with which she carried herself taught me very early on that neither age nor size matter. Looking back, I can imagine what a scary class monitor, peer, student, and mother she must have turned out to be. But, my health did take a turn for the better, thanks to the rigor and science behind the exercises.

As with all new things learnt and lack of discipline, I lost touch with Yoga and future attempts to regain the mastery never worked, I suspect because I never got my first teacher back. I wonder sometimes, what she is up to now. If things worked well and her students reciprocated with the same commitment that she showed towards the art, I am sure many lives would have been touched and changed for the better.

P. S. This post is the twenty fifth in the A-Z blogging challenge series for April. 

2 comments:

Liz Brownlee said...

Ah. I do TM, which is a wonderful way of boosting immunity! ~Liz http://www.lizbrownleepoet.com

Kavity said...

Oh that's great. Though I wonder if I would have the patience for meditation :/ In fact, a common complaint my Yoga teacher had against me was that I did the asanas too fast, as if I was in a hurry to catch the next train to nowhere.