When a man of 91 walks as if he is barely 60, talks as if he is a 45 year old CEO of a recession proof company and smiles with the innocence of a 10 year old, there ends all debate, if there's still any, about the wonders that regular practice of yoga can do to your mind and body. But then, the man in question is no ordinary practitioner, he is the lord of yoga.
Perhaps more people in the West are familiar with the name of BKS Iyengar than in India, though with the winds of change blowing, from the West, unfortunately, the importance of yoga and Iyengar's stature in the field are being acknowledged back home as well.
"When I became a teacher in 1936, one was thought to be half insane to take up yoga. We did not have more than 10 teachers in the whole of India. Until 1954, we were struggling. I was teaching in schools and colleges of Pune. They would make me wait for hours. At times they would just send me back after the wait. I took all those humiliations but never gave up," said Iyengar, who was in Chennai on Sunday afternoon to give away certificates to students of the prestigious Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram who had completed their teacher's training.
In 1954, salvation arrived in the form of a student called Yehudi Menuhin, the violinist and conductor, who was in India to perform at the invitation of Jawaharlal Nehru. "He had a nervous attack and could not hold the violin. Yoga cured him and he gave successful performances. He invited me to teach in Switzerland, which turned out to be the gateway of yoga to the West. People never thought someone of Menuhin's calibre could be interested in yoga," reminisced Iyengar.
By Bishwanath Ghosh
THE LATEST YOGA NEWS, FROM IT IS YOGA
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