I heart YOGA (purely for its entertainment value) PART 2

As I was putting off my shoes outside the hall, I noticed a group of girls go in, one of whom could be described in the AIIMS-lingo as ‘garam’. I suddenly thought to myself, maybe coming to this place wasn’t such a bad idea afterall. Maybe after so many years of anal-probing destiny was finally making upto me. But you all have to know one thing about destiny-it’s a bitch! yep it’s a nefarious she-canine which loves nothing more than to bend you over the fence and screw you over again and again . As you must have guessed it already, the hall was divided into two halves by a screen through which even the most lecherous eyes couldn’t peer. And all I could see this side of the screen in my vicinage were septuagenarians, morbidly obese dudes, balding veterans with gyanecomastia, and what could only be described as humanoid grizzlies (who had sauntered into the hall after having a roll in the night soil).I mentally rebuked myself for acting like a prude, but no sooner had the yoga begun that I wished I hadn’t.

First of all the instructor--(who must be 50+ but looked half that age and boasted about the tone of his external anal sphincter as a matter of factly, like he was telling you about Sachin Tendulkar’s batting skills, I kid you not, this guy seriously started yelling about his bowels and nether regions to a class of more than 70 which included women)--asked us to sit on our mats and start the pranayama. What followed was a practical demonstration of how upper respiratory tract infections get transmitted. People were coughing up purulent sputum in copious amounts ,but all hell broke loose when the instructor asked everyone to increase the frequency, people started dripping snot from their nostrils like they were trying to water their gardens with a hose. Meanwhile I, who had overdosed on the infectious diseases chapter from my Robbins and Cotran’s pathology textbook was testing my breath holding capacity so as to avoid providing my respiratory tract as a petri-dish to the microbial carnival going on in the surrounding air. Within no time the increase in the ambient moisture content was palpable. One guy actually created the world record for the farthest flight of phlegm from a human throat and another almost usurped the snail’s position in the kingdom animalia in terms of mucilage production.

After a lot many more variations in the acts of inspiration & expiration, the instructor asked us to lie down on our backs and repeat the entire routine which was repeated time and again in different positions(now if only you expand the instructions and replace breathing in and out with pelvic gyrations and try it with a female partner,u really don’t need vatsasayana’s magnum opus). Half an hour (and multiple ghon’s foci--for all the non-medical personnel its a kind of lung lesions seen in T.B) later, we were done with the breathing exercises. Next he made us lie flat on our backs and fold our knees and press them into our bellies. Major mistake because his next words were drowned out by the explosive sounds that filled the room as the wind trapped inside people’s bowels for weeks suddenly found itself forced out through their aboral apertures and exclaimed loudly with mirth at its newfound freedom. Next we were told to raise our legs straight high up in the air and try keep as much of our midriff airborne simultaneously, now it sounds easy but just like everything else it is much harder once you get down to doing it in real life. But sadly the few who managed to accomplish the feat were in for a disappointment because the many, whom gravity wasnt too kind on, crashed their legs into the others’ in their ill-fated attempts to master the asana(whose name is escaping me at the moment which is pretty understandable given the fact that most asanas have larger than octasyllablic names).even as everyone was nursing their newly-acquired wounds the instructor who seemed oblivious to the surrounding pandemonium moved on to the next asana. He asked everyone to lie flat on their bellies and raise their torsos and legs off the ground at the same time(an act i believe is possible only if you wave a magic wand and say Wingardium Leviosa---harry potter fan anyone????).Now by this time I had resigned myself to blindly following whatever I was told to do.Again major mistake, because no sooner had I lifted my torso off the ground, I found my visual field completely obliterated by the 40 feet wide perineum of this fat dude in front of me. Acting on a reflex I immediately bowed my head down and the veteran to my right immediately blurted out “Beta you are not doing it right,you have to look up”, thankfully I chose insubordination over suicide. Over the course of next 45 minutes which seemed longer than a weeklong stay at Auschwitz.We were made to test the resilience of our joints in ways which no human being ought to. Thankfully the number of people present started dwindling on account of things like muscle cramps, sharting(u know when shit comes out along with a fart),seizures and angina.

Mercifully the class came to an end eventually.I am in no way undermining the benefits of yoga but after my ordeal I have reached the conclusion that it just ain’t my cup of tea. In order to keep healthy I prefer the good old AIIMS way –Always keep a bottle of Listerine, an Industrial strength disinfectant and enough Augmentin ready.

Well now that you guys know the truth,you can make an informed decision whether or not you wanna join the yoga bandwagon.As for me I am just keeping my fingers crossed in case my dad gets another one of his ‘wonderful ideas’.