yoga and the art of pronouncing ha!

My earliest memories of Yoga are related to early morning doordarshan shows where the yoga teacher would prod the participants with a stick. My mom was of a firm belief that  the next best thing to exercising is looking at someone else exercise!

Later when I reached an age where chubby was not considered cute anymore my mom enrolled me into yoga classes. Our teacher was an elderly Tamil lady who was amazingly agile for her age. She had long white hair which she wore in a braid and she wore kacche saree (I used to call her “saree-pant ajji”) and would go into “shirsaasana” (yoga stance where your body is completely inverted) at the drop of a hat. Somehow she always reminded me of Master Splinter!

As a kid I was given to wild imagination .The idea of a woman who wore saree-pant and spoke unceasingly about discipline while balancing on her hand is hard for any kid to take. I would imagine that she was training me to be a ninja. While in asaanas I would go into a flight of fancy involving superhuman powers, fighting criminals and living in the underground, lose balance and topple over.

We were supposed to meditate for ten minutes everyday. Very often, I would get caught stealthily opening my eyes or I would collapse into guffaws on hearing the sonorous snores of some sleep deprived uncle. The punishment was always the same-shirsaasna for 10 minutes. I think I can blame my weirdness to all that excessive flow of blood to my head during my childhood.

Very often she reprimanded me for not sticking to the prescribed diet of pulses (soaked overnight). Anybody who had relished the akki roti-butter-gojju combination my mom used to make…would rather prefer death over eating soggy pulses!

There was another lady who would take classes along with me. She spoke in a high pitched nasal voice. The jackass that I was, one morning I imitated her voice while saying the prayers. That day, after the class was over, I was given the beating of a lifetime.

That was the last day I ever saw saree-pant ajji . In fact I have never gone on that road again!

During my engineering, I started taking yoga classes again . My mom and her friend would also accompany me. Our yoga class was held in a big bungalow which was built near the ring road in J.P Nagar. The owner, an accomplished dancer had moved to Switzerland leaving the bungalow in charge of a distant cousin who was now teaching yoga.

Fifteen minutes past five we would start from our house. Chamundi hills would look like a sleeping giant; dogs would eye us suspiciously. The sky would be a canvas of blues and grays with shades of pink, orange and purple thrown in. Old men who were denied slumber’s sweet embrace would be heading for their morning walk. Many would stop to exchange pleasantries with my mom. There would be women drawing rangolis and milkmen who were on their way. Those big cans which were tied to the bicycle carried in their bosoms milk for the morning coffee for so many families…

The silence of the dawn has newness to it, that it’s sometimes hard to believe that it’s older than life itself.

On our first day, our yoga teacher gave us a lecture about yoga. He was a dark complexioned man who always wore white. He spoke about the discipline of a yogi. He told us that he has been practicing yoga since his childhood and that he sleeps only two hours everyday. He went on and on about how yoga would result in all round health for those who practice it deligiently. After one around of suryanamaskars we were out of there.

Next day…the gates were locked. After waiting for ten minutes my aunt suggested that I climb over the gates and go ring the door bell. After some hesitation I gave in. After constant banging on the door, our sleepy eyed guru opened the door and smiled at me sheepishly. Little did I know that this would become a pattern! In a few days…I had become adept at climbing gates!

This guru of ours had other charming qualities as well. Though he constantly bragged about his knowledge he rarely practiced the asaanas along with us. He would sit on his chair and count our breath. Sometimes he would doze off while we balanced ourselves in the “Adho Mukha Svanasana” (down-dog). He perpetually suffered from a running nose and refused medication from my mom on the grounds that it would poison his body!

But the king among his any endearing qualities was definitely the fact that he had trouble pronouncing “ha” often pronouncing “aa” instead. To make matters worse he had a penchant of using wordings full of “ha”s!

It was a test for our will powers not to burst out laughing in the middle of our aasanas while he counted “aatthu….annondhu…annerdu…adimooru…adinaaku..adinaidhu..adinaaru…adinyoLu..

Adinentu..attombatthu…”(11-19…)

[Only kannadigas who can pronounce their “ha”s will find this hilarious]

Don’t you think for a minute that I didn’t like taking classes from him! He was very patient with us. The classes were very flexible. The classes didn’t have fixed timings and you could do the exercises at your own pace. I also had the pleasure of meeting amazing “characters” during those classes. A guy who made whistling sounds while breathing, another guy who sneezed through the asaanas, a couple who did the asana in unison…

Now, I take yoga classes two times a week. Americans take their yoga very seriously.My liking for yoga has deepened over the years. There is something lovely about a group of people who exercise in silence. Yoga is not just about asaanas or discipline or doing complicated postures. It’s about knowing your body. It’s about moving with grace. It’s to be aware of our body. But even now when my American teacher asks us to hold some asana, I can close my eyes and almost hear my old teacher counting “aatthu…annondhu…”