From snoring to spiritual awakening: My days in Mysore

Well, I cannot remember where it all started.

Yoga had no part to play in my life, even after NaMo(cute way to address a Prime Minister with authoritarian tendencies, innit?) proclaimed in the UN, “Mitrooonnn, 21st June will be International Day of Yogaaaaa.” The only thing amiss was he did not make this announcement while doing an asana himself. But I am guessing he is always doing Pranayama to control his anger towards skull-cap-sporting, terrorists-in-making that he bumps into on a daily basis.

But neither is this post about our benevolent(lol) dictator nor is it about the international day of stretching your body and tormenting yourself. Like every great piece of writing, this one too, is about the writer himself. Though I will make every attempt to mask the self indulgence with totally useless information.

So yes, I do not know where it started. But I thought learning Yoga might be a good idea as my body and mind had started to grow thick. And though I may blame my age, the ‘thirties’ for it; the truth is that the believing beer drinking to be a legitimate sport hasn’t helped either. And for all of you who want the perverse joy of voyeuristic information, my snoring was getting out of control. The girlfriend, the nice person that she is, gave me a choice - ‘it’s either me or the snoring’.

Now for someone like me who has been single and desperate most of his life, when the girlfriend expects something you deliver. Be it clothes, jewellery or a clear nasal tract.

That quest took me to Mysore. Which is in South of India, or the region where ‘BC Hindi baat karne me gaand jalti hai unki’. It was some sort of spiritual connection, nothing or no one told me that Yoga or Mysore could cure my snoring. But I was brought towards the city by its mystical magical light or by the overnight train, I don’t quite remember.

I had expected a blissful experience. You know the slow pace, many cups of Tulsi tea, being surrounded by pretty women in slacks and the graceful asanas. The good life, I had thought to myself before stepping into the Yoga shala. After a few rounds of Namastes with western women at different stages of spiritual enlightenment, my first hatha yoga class began. Almost immediately.

The least I can say about it is, I wasn’t ready for it.

For the first time in my life, I saw the ceiling despite not lying in the bed. I also realised that the distance between the end of my limbs is more than Virar and Churchgate. Bringing them together was impossible. And no, impossible is not nothing.

What followed were days filled with realisation, not of the spiritual kind, but of the amount of fat that clinged to my body. Every time my Yoga teacher got me to twist my spine, I was like, ‘that’s it, now it is going to break’.

As days progressed I had to do Vrikasana(the standing on one feet and saying namaste to the sky thing), which I realised was a good way to start dancing without a drink. Try it sometime, balancing yourself on one foot is a great way to learn dancing.

It was all quite unnecessary, I must add. Why should one pay and learn Yoga to torment one’s body when a rush hour local train ticket in Mumbai only costs 20 Rupees at most? But like a true cost conscious Indian, leaving the Yoga course half way was not a choice. I had already paid in advance! FML!

My pranayama lessons were a different story. Kapala-bhati where you push breath from your abdomen with great speed seems like a prep for India to launch low cost satellites using breath air sans fuel. No wonder Baba Ramdev is considered so important by the present government, he could help us break new barriers in the space exploration.

Bastrika, a type of Pranayama has you breathing slowly from one nostril, holding my breath and releasing it from the other after a few seconds. It was so confusing that I would almost forget how to breathe. I think I almost died a few times. But I kept going because my Guru promised me that it will cure me of snoring in six months. Of course, being cured of snoring is more important than life itself.  I am sure all you non snoring, sickular librandus don’t get it.

But all was not unwell. I could do one of the toughest asanas with utmost ease. Towards the end of the class, our gurus would ask us to perform the difficult task of lying on the floor with our backs(can ya believe it?!?). Then we would have to rest our arms on the floor with the palms facing the ceiling( it was difficult, must tell ya, bigly difficult). AND CLOSE OUR EYES, OMG.

The true Yogi that I am, I aced this asana called the Kshava-asana in no time. A co-student told me, “hey, you fall asleep during Kshava-asana and start snoring.”

I just smiled and looked away. I thought to myself, “what does a London girl with no yogic understanding know? It is not snoring but transcendental spiritual vibration.”

And that is how my friends Yoga cured me of snoring, just like that. Now time to spiritually awaken my girlfriend so she does not mistake these transcendental vibrations for a stupid problem like snoring.

Thank you Mysore Yoga and shukriya….errr….dhanyawad...NaMo. Mera desh badal raha hai, spiritual ban raha hai!