Yogic Cocktail

 International Yoga Day having been adopted by the UN on an initiative by India is not just another day being celebrated internationally.  As it is there are plenty of them with even MSMEs having a day dedicated to them. Obviously the aim of declaring any day as a special day is to increase awareness of the people and to work towards the cause. that it espouses Yoga is India's gift to the world, with no strings attached, no copyrights just learn and practise. It is not just physicals but incorporates the spiritual aspects also, the only spirits that we have been used to is obviously not being referred to. Although even that kind of spirit does induce some sort of spiritualism in most of the aficionados. 

Yoga in Hindi means addition i e joining two parts together, although the asanas make every effort to convert them into disjointed ones, at least at our ages. Having used and abused our bodies in a manner as though it belonged to someone else in all these years in the Army, now we are seeking refuge in Yoga to bring them back to at least a semblance of the joints that they were, that too without having to take a joint of you know what.  The biggest culprit was the ammunition boots with the thirteen nails and horseshoe in the sole, our souls were permanently separated from our mortal bodies then and there. Drill Ustaads in the  Drill Square made sure of that, every time we did a "double time thum" That act is difficult to explain to the uninitiated, but let me make an attempt nevertheless, imagine as though you have been bitten by a bug in the derriere, a real painful prick, how would you respond, you would jump and then with all your might you would like to quash the bug under your feet, stomp it to death, that is exactly the manoeuvre that we repeated at least a million times daily, with the knees literally touching our nipples before crashing down. Mind you we had the ammunition boots each weighing almost a kg with all the iron in the sole. Now once you have been able to visualise the effects of this act, which folks sends shivers down the spine of an onlooker when a body of thousand and five hundred execute in perfect unison, so much so that even Queen of England Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth admitted that she had never ever witnessed such a spectacle. But it was not just the drilling that we did in the Parade Grounds, in our exuberance we injured ourselves in the knees, ankles, shoulders and went on break a few bones too either on the sports fields or at times even getting into minor accidents that too has taken a toll, so the creaking joints now don't just creak, they howl in protest every time we attempt any Yogic asana reminding us of all our misdemeanours over the years. 

I have heard that Yoga is now part of the curriculum in all the training academies, that is indeed a laudable step, a scientific approach towards toughening up the young lads. But in the same breath, I dare say, old habits die hard, I am not sure if all the other activities would now be reduced to a footnote in history or would they also linger on in some form or the other, that would be quite a heady yogic cocktail indeed. Some smart Alec will register this as a unique form of Yoga and even go ahead and lodge a patent even.