Yoga se hoga (may be)

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Lockdown isolation has led to epiphanies for many. I have not had such a moment of emotional glamour. My own realisations have been ordinary ones, among them understanding that I had allowed the agility and enthusiasm of my being, to be replaced by physical pain and emotional sadness. So, 10 months ago, after a gap of six years, I resumed yoga class.

My earlier yoga class was in a group. Some readers may recall it had featured a co-student named Eureka, a very, well, attractive teacher and some backbencher behaviour from me.

A solo class, that too on Zoom is a different business. You cannot bunk for reasons like "I could not find my house keys". You cannot hide in the last row or behind class-clown behaviour. You must stoically submit to the ignominy of your stiffness, clumsiness, and plain inability being on full display for another person. Let's say, you have to find your centre of gravity, and abandon your sense of levity.

My yoga sir is not one of those garrulous, beatific Instagram yoga people. The only words I have heard him say are: inhale, exhale, numbers 1 to 50 asana names (sometimes affectionately shortened to bhujanga, parabata etc.) and ‘observe the changes'. The mean girl voice in my head shames me - "what changes? You'll never improve." But, never discussing, only doing - what is called practice - has a strange alchemy. One day, you find you have unthinkingly twisted all the way in vakrasana and want to cry out, "Sir! Observe the changes!" (don't worry, I did not humiliate myself by doing so).

This is not a tale of redemption. This column does not end with me becoming good at yoga. All I have really got to being, is not-bad at yoga. I can hear someone say: think positive. This is one of the most positive thoughts I have: I am mediocre at yoga, and that's fine.

The false democracy of our times promotes ideas like "everyone is beautiful" or destined for success if they but say their dreams out loud. Social media underscores this thinking because its formats are designed for the familiar and ‘relatable' - which often means repackaging work and thinking others have laboured over. It also conflates numerical success with excellence, like caste conflates privilege with merit. For many, it translates into thinking that something you are okay at should bring you acclaim. For some who do beautiful, thoughtful work without numerical success, it brings debilitating self-doubt.

The fake news of social media numbers, breeds an overwhelming covetousness and constant comparison. It's a lonely state with solemn graphics asking you to celebrate yourself, for company. Look, celebrating yourself all the time, is too much work. Breathe.

I am good at many things, because I've struggled and slogged to turn those talents into skill. At yoga though - or baking - I will always be an amateur. The joy of being an amateur is you understand what it takes to be an expert, and can celebrate excellence. That frees you into a world of pleasure and wonder in the art and work of others. Yoga videos are my porn. I marvel at the flower-stalk grace of someone's shirshasana, the Mission Impossible freeze frame of someone's Kagasana, without the anxiety of comparison. Breathe in someone's beauty, breathe out your own. Or as they say, Namaste baby.

Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at paromita.vohra@mid-day.com