Where you do yoga matters

The day I landed in Delhi, I had tears in my eyes. Not because I got emotional about being home after more than a year, but because of the pollution in Delhi.

I was tearing up. I felt some irritation in my chest.

It was after all, the Diwali time in Delhi. It feels we are going in circles. I heard the same thing in newspapers and on TV. The same Supreme Court asking the Government wtf was going on. The same finger pointing at stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana. The solution is not technically infeasible. During odd-even and otherwise we notice the improvements. But the will is not there. Or so it feels.

On the same day that I landed, I had a flight to Bangalore. Once there, we were staying in a hotel with limited space.

Bangalore weather is great. I had wonderful breakfast at Udupi Grand almost every day.

I could not however do any yoga there. Because of time and space constraints.

I returned to Delhi and after celebrating Diwali, we travelled to Bihar, to my ancestral village to celebrate Chath.

Winter was late in the North. By now, in early November, there should have been a bit of a chill in the air. There was none here.

However, after spending a day to settle down, I started with my yoga practice. I was sleeping late and getting up later. And so, it was not ideal. By the time I woke up, the sun was already high up in the sky. It would be warm, not the heat of the summers, but still warm enough. Not ideal.

After spending five days in Bihar, we returned to Delhi.

I continued yoga at home. But it never felt right. By now a little bit of fog had started falling in the morning. And in Delhi, fog=smog.

I remember being in shavasana, and it felt as if someone was standing on my chest.

Today, after doing two days of yoga, here in my home, I can feel the difference. I can feel my body bending, stretching. I can feel my breath. I can feel the joy that yoga brings.

Yoga is not independent of the place and time it is being done in. The air that we breathe in matters, even though my body had gotten accustomed to the poisonous Delhi air in my two continuous weeks there. People living there might not feel anything. I, for sure, did not. But just because we get accustomed to almost anything, does not make it good, or right.