Trail of Crumbs.

It’s the August monsoon. Our class is on the Chatt. With their oiled hair and forever darkened eyes , they see something else entirely, they feel all the same things with their hearts though. They never let me fall into that trap, where I or anyone else sees them as a label-“blind chick”- no way!

I could, because it is just so easy to put people in a box- categorize , deal and dismiss, but they don’t allow that . They’re very much individuals, strong ones, they speak their mind, full of curiosity, eager for praise, cracking jokes at the teacher’s expense (mine)- fantastic girls, no different from any other 20 year olds except that they don’t have the eyes that work for them.

I thought teaching yoga to visually challenged people would help, it helps regular people so much with co-ordination and balance and with body-awareness. And I began it not as social service but as an interesting idea that would take hold of my brain and refuse to leave. Much like how yoga originally came into my life- I didn’t know the “why” of it- I would just do it!

The idea took seed and root, opportunity made itself known- I coincidentally stumbled across this Training institute for visually challenged women. Teaching yoga to these girls goes beyond like or dislike, it has nothing to do with it or with anything I want. I struggle though with not knowing the A to B; I have no earthly idea why I want to teach this class and where it’ll go- either for them or for me.

Which is rare because we like to think linearly and reasons to do things define us. You know how you get those inspired ideas that snowball into all these aspects of your life? One step leads to many? This is like that, except the idea hasn’t snowballed and I haven’t figured where it fits. Am I of any help to them in the larger picture? With my fitted tights, my muscles and my university degree – of what help is my evening yoga to the lives of these girls? Like when someone asks you a trick question and at first you think you have the answer but then you’re not so sure? I feel like they help me more than the other way around.

On the face of it – I’m helping them. I know this , I can see it in their now erect carriage and how their brows smoothen and I can see it in their smiles and I know they like me as much I like them and I know they look forward to the classes. But somehow when I come back home I feel like I’ve been given something. Like they’ve given me something immeasurably more and with more depth than I could ever do for them. What that “thing” is , I don’t know but I know they have given me something else than I could have ever given them.

Through this, I am becoming increasingly of someone watching me. In this interplay between giggling Mina and gang and the serious me, someone or something watches over us. I see glimpses of something, glimpses that portent to be a trail of crumbs. I feel like Hansel and Gretel from the children’s fairytale except I know that the presence is a benign one. Some one is waiting to eat me at the other end, but in a good way. I cannot qualify it, but I’ll go with it.

Nothing happens without Grace.

Grace.

It’s the monsoon season. I climb the stairs to the terrace. The institute smells, not the bits that are open to the public but inside, in the dining room and in the girls rooms. It’s musty and the place could do with a coat of paint.

This class is a completely new start for me, I set it up and so on. I thought teaching visually challenged students yoga had potential and I wanted to challenge myself.

It’s been two months and I’m not sure how well I’m doing. We’ve shuttled from the AC of the media lab, to the lawn, to the ghastly hall and finally settled on the terrace. I like the terrace – the girls aren’t distracted and we have a tonne of space.

It feels great to be outside. The terrace is quiet and you can see treetops and clouds and the August sky. The girls can’t see anything, not because they’re lying down but because they can’t see, not with their eyes and not in this lifetime. I’m a fan of fresh air and exercise which is why our class is on the terrace. Inside the tube-lights are depressing and I don’t want the girls to have to smell onions frying in shavasana.

Some of the girls smell too and it’s not something they can help- the smell of perfumed hair and sweat and clothes that couldnt been washed cleaner. I take for granted the ability to groom & primp and and to clean my room but everyone doesn’t have that.

I also really like these girls. They make me laugh and force me to take myself less seriously. Working with them is one of the hardest things I’ve done. It makes me feel out of control and very small. This class challenges me, the least of it is that they can’t see me. In my fitted tights, with all my gorgeous muscles and intermittent moments of calm I question my yoga training and what it amounts to -who is helping who? The girls have a wicked sense of humour which is a nice change because yoga classes can get really serious.

I am anal about mat placements and everyone facing in one direction. I rightly expect all the things that I do from my sighted students and then sometimes I berate myself for making it so hard for them because doing yoga poses well, is possibly the least of their concerns. However teaching yoga is what I know and if they’re my students they are going to have to apply themselves wholly.

There is so much give and take involved a yoga class, students aren’t aware of it at a conscious level but how they feel when they leave your class has to do with what you’re projecting that day- what you put in is what you get out. Because students and teachers attune to each other’s frequency, it’s very important to vibrate well as a teacher. Understandably mood-wise this class vacillates a lot more than any of my other classes.

Everything becomes curiously magnified with them. Highs and lows. My patience or lack of, how proud I feel when they try, how funny I think they are, how much I try in and outside this class, how much love swells inside me when I see them, how much love I feel from them, how absolutely small I feel – with my muscles and my university degree, my hard-won ability to correct any pose- what is the point of it all? On the face of it, it’s me teaching them. But it feels like when someone asks you a trick question. You think you’ve the right answer and then you wonder if you got the question right.

This idea about teaching yoga to people who couldn’t see came into my head from nowhere, much like doing yoga came into my life. It’s been a snowball of an idea that has refused to get bigger.

My friend Bhasin put it so aptly “I just want to cum yaar!”. I can’t tell of what help I am or of who is helping who.

Through it I feel like someone is watching me; alternatively encouraging, lighting my road but laughing still. I don’t know who it is and I really don’t get the joke.