Step at a Time

Dad was about 55 years of age, when he woke up one morning and figured he was having vertigo. The family doctor was summoned and he was diagnosed with high blood pressure. The doctor understandably recommended rest, apart from medication. Dad had to call up the office and excuse himself from work. He didn’t like it – at all!

That day defined two things about me and my life. I turned out to be a workaholic and a regular at Yoga. So, where does yoga fit in this story?

A somewhat medication and rest fortified father, soon after the incident, took off for a weeklong program at The Yoga Institute, Santacruz, Bombay. He returned, armed with a dozen books and immediately enrolled for some evening classes at a nearby yoga school. My mother, his partner for life, fell in-step. There can be nothing like a shared passion between couples. The home slowly began to represent a yoga school with books, posters and my parents challenging their aging bodies and each other into various contortions. I was asked to check the correctness of the postures from the reference books. I was sixteen, finding all this somewhat easier and wanting to show-off. I started self-training.

My Teacher - a well-thumbed copy and companion

That’s where my journey began. Apart from my parents, I had my teacher – Sitadevi Yogendra (Yoga – Physical Education for Women). Through two late pregnancies, frequent travel related interruptions, plain laziness and a few times just outgrowing the interest for other new pursuits; I left yoga every once-in-a-while, but yoga didn’t leave me. That, I believe leaves me rightfully qualified to reflect upon some good reasons to do yoga.

A little tongue-in-cheek; if you have managed, by eight in the morning, to balance on one leg (ekapadasana), to lift your body on your shoulders (sarvanangasana) or bend over like a plough (halasana), you simply have to feel braver at facing the world. Following this if you are in a meeting and being mansplained you look the concerned man directly in the eye and silently tell yourself “poor man, he cannot do the ekapadasana”.  Believe me, it will bring you back to the table to dominate the discussions or help you to pass off the bloviate bits as too irrelevant to tackle. 

On a more serious note, if you have worried about worrying, experimented with meditation and not quite found your rhythm, even a mild form of yoga is a good start. Simple movements, with balanced breathing and the very process of counting while inhaling, exhaling or holding your breath engages the mind. I have found it easier to adapt to this process than try other forms of meditation that require concentrating on the breath itself.

As we went into lockdown, one of my first thoughts was stretching (pun unintended) myself a little more in my yoga exercises. Many developments on the personal and professional fronts and a little health triggered interruption, last year, found me struggling to get back into my routine. I decided to do just ‘one extra’ Suryanamaskara, each day. Yesterday, I touched ten. I have to take a decision whether to keep going till twenty-one or stabilize here, so that even when work resumes, I continue at it.

A couple of years back, I have also started a ‘walk at home’ routine. Brisk, a tad bit of cardio and some sweat is a good transition. These are simple steps and easy ten to fifteen-minute routines that one can follow on the net. My lockdown-leadership advice for the first couple of days was shooting off these links to my colleagues. My sister and one colleague have taken this up. Much encouraged, I am reaching out to all of you through this blog.

After all, healthy living can only begin with that first step!

The 21-day Rule

“Excellence……is not an act but a habit” – Aristotle

I have often joked with friends and colleagues, that I am a compulsive goal-setter. Be it the new year (for a Bengali, this is twice in the year – well spaced out in January and April), the start of a month, the start of a week or sometimes a landmark date like say, Diwali. Collectively, I stay resolutions-ready for ten to fifteen times in a year!

So, when the government announced a lockdown, it was too good an opportunity to lose. Vaguely, I remembered reading that 21 days of repetitive behavior could be habit-forming. I found myself a relatively new and neat notebook (thanks to a daughter with a penchant for pretty notebooks; in my possession, since she left home) and firmly put down the date – March 25, 2020. The resolutions list is a little too personal to share, so we shall leave it out of this space.

With the good intention of reinforcing my resolve, I decided to do a quick check on the net about this 21-Day rule.  A study carried out at University College, London (chosen by default and not design, as often happens in internet searches) was not particularly encouraging. In the study group, 96 participants were asked to choose an everyday behavior that they want to turn into a habit. For 84 days of the study, they logged a report each day on whether they practiced the behavior and how automatic this felt. Without going into the details, suffice to say that 21-days is probably right if all you want to do is drink a glass of water immediately on waking up.

My resolutions list, surely, is a little more challenging than that! This after-all is day one, so one shall not feel daunted by such research findings.

Speaking here a little more about the number 21. In the world of Tarot, the number is symbolic with success and fulfillment of desires. Not being an expert on numerology, I will not attempt to support this fact (or otherwise) with an explanation but would welcome some knowledgeable insights from my dear readers.

The number 21 finds many references in the Bible and it is mainly associated with change - in the sense of moving from a state of “evil” to a state of “goodness”. It is believed that Jesus Christ appeared in 21 places in Palestine, in order to confirm to all his believers that he was resurrected. Borrowing from Greek philosophy, wisdom is believed to have 21 attributes. In the same way, we bestow adulthood at the age of 21 by recognizing maturity and responsibility in an individual.

On a significantly different note, I am also reminded of a Bengali rhyme – Ekushe Ain from Sukumar Ray’s collection of Abol-Tabol (The Nonsense Rhymes). Translated, literally, it means ‘(The) 21 Rules’. At its satirical best, it is a reflection on the arbitrariness of British Rule. For my non-Bengali friends, I would recommend checking out the English translation in Wordygurdyboom by Sampurna Chatterjee and, while you are at it, read up on some of his other rhymes, too. These nonsense rhymes are highly recommended to cut-out any sense of doom or ennui.

Finally, our PM has said winning the war against coronavirus will take 21 days as opposed to the 18 days taken to win the epic war of Mahabharata, underlining the enormity of the challenge posed by the disease. We are all struggling with an indefinite, indescribable and, for now, an indestructible virus that has brought the world to its knees. While this is a sobering thought, in many ways it is also a reminder to make each day count.

Stay safe, respect lockdown!

#Covid_19 #21dayslockdown #coronavirus #self-quarantined