Thankfully it had rained all night. The pleasant weather gave me some motivation to go and join the one-day “yogis” at the Mohan Ahuja Stadium in Northern Town who were more concerned about their perfect selfies rather than learning asanas.
No, I am not at all a yoga person. Not because I don't like it but because it takes too much of patience to practise yoga. So, a person like me who is more inclined towards zumba or aerobics with blaring music in the background finally went and sought a decent place inside the stadium. At around 6:15am when I entered, there were a handful of people in the stadium. I could see many known faces including some businessmen and bureaucrats who otherwise “don’t find time to exercise because of busy schedule” sitting ready in padmasana. I wondered if they would continue doing yoga with the same zest from tomorrow or it was just to add to the crowd and prove a point.
Anyway, I found a decent place to perform my asanas. In a few moments more people joined because the crowd from Gopal Maidan (the original venue, which was changed because of the rain) shifted partly to Mohan Ahuja stadium, which is about one-tenth of the size of Gopal Maidan. By the time it was 7am with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech directly telecast from Ranchi on the LED screens, more people swarmed into the stadium looking for their place to perform yoga; and I had to continuously deny people.
The stadium which then had about 40 people looked for like a satsang (religious discourse). Just when I was warding off people from “my space”, someone tapped on my shoulders. I looked back. A man, probably in his sixties, said: “Beta thoda mera photo khinch do (Please click a picture of mine).”
I took his smartphone and clicked a couple of pictures. Other uncles — probably his friends — also made me click their pictures.
As the yoga photography session concluded, representatives of Pantanjali Yogpith asked everyone to start doing the “shithilikarana vyayama”. I was a bit surprised because I thought yoga usually starts with the chanting of “Om”. Nevertheless, I continued following the asanas on the stage. Since time was a factor, the person almost rushed with the asanas. While I was too engrossed in performing the standing postures, I didn't realise that there was hardly any space left around me as it was encroached by men and women.
“Thoda side ho jaiye please (Please shift a bit),” a woman in white salwar kameez asked me. “But I don't have anymore space,” I replied. The woman was offended; making me feel guilty as if I had stopped her from doing yoga on this very auspicious day.
I kept struggling with my space and performed tadasan, trikonasan and uttanasana. I spotted a pot-bellied businessman who tried doing uttanasana but couldn’t. His belly would not let him touch his ankles. “Ye sab ek din ki baat nahi hai. Roz karna padega, (This isn’t about a day and must be practised everyday),” he said to a friend.
By the time the Patanjali members on stage asked to everyone to lie down for the next set of asanas, people bumped into each other. After that, during every asana, people kept apologising to each other due to the lack of space.
Everyone struggled and finally that moment of shavasana (resting position, the last asana) came at around 8am. I couldn’t take the humidity anymore; I was feeling dizzy. Finally I got up, freeing myself from the sweat and smell of other people, but others continued. Some were so engrossed in shavasana that they didn’t wake up. A few even started snoring and others had to wake them up.
I left the venue before the crowd could start fetching their shoes outside and jostled to get out of the venue. As I left I overheard a policeman saying: “Ye saare log kal yoga bhoola ke phir apne kaam me lag jayenge. Ab agle saal dikhenge (All these people will forget yoga and get busy with their lives from tomorrow. We will now get to see them next year).”
It made me realise that all the branding of International Day of Yoga eventually fails if one doesn’t get motivated to continue exercising every single day.
