I have never met or attended a class of the great yoga guru Mr. BKS Iyengar but I’ve had the good fortune to have attended his classes conducted in my neighbourhood at Home Villa. When I first set my eyes on the class room, I thought I’d entered a torture chamber with its hanging ropes, wooden props and four kilo bolsters. I was equally miffed when my Yoga instructor refused to help saying that we had not checked into a five star hotel but a Yoga class. It didn’t help that he even grabbed my arms and pointing them out to the class as a fine example of pure ghee from Porbunder ( Porbunder nu asli ghee). 


Despite these jibes I enjoyed the Yoga classes and benefitted greatly from them. Compared to the other yoga classes I’d attended over the years, the Iyengar classes were by far the most exacting. The teachers were thorough and the props helped in achieving the perfect pose. And unlike other classes which had mantras and chanting, Iyengar’s classes were just pure and simple exercise.

When any of us grumbled or grimaced while doing an asan, the teacher would point out to a photograph of the guru in a perfect pose and tell us that if he could do it at his age, there was no reason for us who were half his age not to do so. Alas! He was the guru while we were not.