The Origins of Modern Yoga- The Movie

I watched the film, The Breath of the Gods last night- a film by German Director Jan Schmidt-Garre screened in London. And it sold out for its entire run.

Schmidt-Garre wants to answer the question: is there one true yoga?

The film first tries to trace the origins of yoga and finds that although it is spoke about in ancient texts, it was not widely practised in India until the 20th century. And that Krishnamacharya, the 'grandfather' of yoga only died 24 years ago. He was the one who got yoga to be taught in Indian schools and who taught, amongst others, two great teachers, BKS Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois. These two Gurus went on to shape yoga for the West and also for India and both put their unique stamps onto it. Jois or instance made yoga 'difficult and fast'. Iyengar goes against his Guru, who he feels largely ignored him and made him rip his hamstring which took 2 years to heal. But his Guru imposed on him that he would teach yoga to city dwellers, a Herculean task, in which he has arguably excelled.

The film has some brilliant lengthy interviews with these two as well as footage of their teachings, including teaching the film's Director. Iyengar in his studio in Pune and Jois in Mysore.
The film also has incredible archive footage of young Jois and Iyengar performing incredible yoga asanas as well as recreated footage of yogis performing to the Maharajah of Mysore as entertainment. Then there's footage of Krishnamacharya teaching his family yoga- with his children he does balancing asanas which resemble basic acroyoga poses (a form of yoga and acrobatics that I recently started). The Maharajah of Mysore was interested in yoga because of its physical benefits, for sport and fighting. It was the 1930s and coming up to Independence. Agility was much needed.

The film also delves into the basic question of : what is Yoga? As Jois says: Control is coming, otherwise this not yoga. Krishnamacharya's teachings were that Yoga leads to 3 things: physical health, mental health- perseverance and purity of thought - and concentration. He omitted talking about God when he went to the West, so as not to impose his religion. In India talking about God is a common thing, says his son, but not in the West.

Which begs the question: why are people in the West so interested in yoga? That is my question and everyone I asked at the screening replied: because they are searching for meaning. But for me, this doesn't fit, as most, but by no means all, yoga classes in the West are physical practices mainly. Of course yoga is a powerful practice and by doing asana-practice it can affect your physical and also mental health- and though the wider philosophy of yoga is not often explained in Western classes, it is perhaps the experience that speaks to the practitioner directly. They feel better both mentally and physically and it increases their concentration. Thereby imbibing the 3 main effects of yoga that Krishnamacharya taught.

As Iyengar says "Those who embraced yoga in the early days, they were maybe mentally disturbed or had quarrels with their parents...' This could be the key as to why it's so popular..?


Krishnamacharaya's children did not admit to the profession of their Father. It was not cool to practice yoga in the 1930s. How things have changed : today the number of people in the USA who practice some form of yoga has grown from 4 million (in 2001) to 20 million (in 2011)

source: Wikipedia

Partner for Life: Love vs Arranged Marriage

Marriage, the un-arranged version (aka 'love marriage')

Looking at most of my friends' experiences as to how they met their life partner: they got together through meeting at the work place and going out one night and getting pissed; or at uni, during a truth or dare game when they had to kiss each other. Some physical attraction was there, then the ol' alcohol lubricant moved things along. Then they went out with each other for sometime before moving in together; then either getting pregnant and then marrying or vice versa. (These are British stories hence the key role alcohol plays in them).

The point I have to underline is that the meeting- is totally random - some might say luck and fate but I think random. Depends which uni or job you chose, which holiday you booked last minute in a panic. Some others I know met through close friends (which you can say is similar to arranged marriage but minus some key features).

Marriage, the modern arranged version (in India)

In today's India, this is simply called 'introductions'. Around the age of 23 (or possibly earlier) couples are introduced by their parents or introduce themselves through online methods, to potential life partners. Each young candidate has their personal profile known as bio-data - e.g. caste, doctored physical appearance ('wheatish' complexion rather than 'dark'), parental occupations, siblings' occupations, caste, education, star sign, etc. Marriage is the objective and from the first conversation it is all about that.

Some classic questions are "do you make tea?" and "do you brush your teeth before bed?"

There's the sharing of intimate stories of your childhood on why you still sleep with the light on, or are scared of dragonflies and what effect your bossy Mother has had on you. These long intimate discussions happen on IM or the phone with a stranger often from your ancestral village. Perhaps before you've even set eyes on them for real.

Of course you're both from the same caste and from 'good families' as identified by the Parents. You are actually marrying the family rather than simply the individual. Typically people decide within 3 months of knowing the person and go ahead and get engaged.

Comparing the two...

So with the love marriage- it is crazy that you are basing such an important decision to pure chance and luck that you will just run into and meet the 'ideal' person.

With arranged marriage it's certainly much more logical and practical. It rules out any romantic notion of eyes meeting over a crowded room and having a crazy love affair in Rome on a vespa and getting married before the week is out. This almost happened to me, though the city was London not Roma. Or does it rule out this kind of crazy attraction? Perhaps not. There is something very crazy for me to think about starting a conversation with a stranger, prospecting them blatantly as someone you'll spend the rest of your life with. BUT given that marriage is a contract and a compromise often with fixed roles, this could be a much saner approach to the whole shebang. Living with someone and having a family is not always very romantic (arguments over hairs all over the bathroom) and is often more of a practical arrangement.

Plus don't forget in India you often will both live with the groom's family. So more pressure. As one of my colleagues (aged 24 looking to have an arranged marriage shortly) says "any 2 sane individuals can fall in love" (i would say 2 insane ones can just as happily)..i guess as long as there's a click, neither method is fail- nor fool- proof but at least if that's what you're looking for, a wife/hubbie and a family, the arranged route, in terms of introductions, and not simply meeting your partner at the alter so to speak (which is rare nowadays) could work well.

Well, yes, as long as you fall in love...right? Can you know in advance that you will fall in love 'in some time'? Is growing into love more long lasting than falling head over heels, nose over toes. In my experiences of love, after one month, or sometimes less, I consciously chose to fall or not to fall. and that decision was irreversible- the relationship had to live out its natural life span.

And does passion actually grow with time? Or as Coco Chanel put it "I loathe passion, what an abomination, what a ghastly disease!..the passionate man takes no notice of the outside world or of other people; he sees them merely as instruments". If not passion though, at least attraction and strong physical connection is essential I would think.

I guess the sad part of arranged marriages is that it promotes in-breeding and a narrow gene pool. Few families are going to introduce cross- race, cross-caste, cross-religion couples to each other. If values and personalities were the main criteria, rather than caste, I would be a huge fan.

A Second Second Life?

Some people are calling GoJiyo the Indian Second Life. Which is I guess a pretty huge compliment given that Second Life is the standard for virtual worlds and has been around for 7 years!

Though Second Life was obviously something we looked at closely and learnt from, we didn’t feel its features would really fit what Godrej needed. This was after all a brand communication platform we were building. I looked at all existing worlds from the hugely successful World of Warcraft, IMVU, Vivaty , Twinity, China’s Hipihi, to Google's experiment with Lively, to Farmville and Habbo Hotel. We looked at branded environments such as Coke World and Lynx World. In our creative sessions we decided to bring together gaming, social networks, branded and 3D environments. In a way what we wanted to do was closer to Sony Playstation's Home in the concept (though accessible through a browser and much smaller in scale) than to Second Life. But without the customized spaces aspect PS Home has. At least for now.

Here are, to my mind the main differences between the GoJiyo and Second LIfe:

a. Access

1. Second Life needs to be downloaded once (approx 50 MB) and then you run that 'viewer' software to enter the world each time. It is not accessible through your browser.

GoJiyo is accessible directly through a browser, where it loads. Most other virtual worlds involve a software download. GoJiyo is designed for an Indian broadband bandwidth- to work on an actual download rate of 60 kbps.
This means each time you go to Gojiyo.com the world downloads, but it has cached the first time, so subsequent downloads are quicker. Our research tells us that
Indians wouldn't want to download a large piece of software. Which is perhaps why Second Life and other virtual worlds haven't really taken off in
India.

GoJiyo works on Unity. This gaming engine has been adapted by our Dev team to a multiplayer
virtual world environment (it’s usually used for uniplayer gaming environments like EA’s Tiger Woods game). It means the graphics can be great, there is some level of physics, and also it’s quite small to download! The Unity plugin is also slim at only 3MB.

2. The graphical user interface of the Second Life Viewer has, up to now, been pretty difficult to use, to quote one of the team, “we are Linden Lab after all” and most Second Life users have had to be quite tech savvy to be able to use it to its full potential. (We’ll see how the new Viewer changes their user demographic).

GoJiyo was designed to be very easy to use in its interface and with simple and fun functionality for less tech savvy users. Aimed at those new to virtual worlds (a step up from Farmville in immersive environments).

b. Features

1. Second Life is much bigger than GoJiyo- it's absolutely huge with loads of regions built by users, there's sophisticated location-based sound and lipsynching of avatars to their voice etc. Avatar customization is much more developed than GoJiyo's too, because it’s user generated, so the team of developers is much larger. You can be a non-human character for instance!

Gojiyo has 6 Regions only, which will refresh continually- Solaria- a beach city; Mauryaavaas - a recreation of the ancient Mauryan Empire, Noom- moon colony; Rejanm - where you can be reborn; an underwater world and an arcticland. Some are very Indian concepts. There is voice chat but GoJiyo is 25 days old compared to 7 years old ad so its features are continually developing. Like with any good software product, features will keep being added continually.

2. One of Second Life’s core tenets is giving creativity to the user though allowing them to create their own content (UGC). Users can create their own regions by buying land and building on it. The tools to build are out there to create everything from avatar clothes to gestures and more.
There are no gaming elements to Second Life really.

GoJiyo on the other hand, has many mini-games, to name a few: you can go bunjee jumping, surfing, skydiving, fight asteroids falling on the Moon and soon speed date in 3^rd Century BCE Mauryavaas. Users can also engage in longer quests like finding who’s stolen all the artworks from the city and restoring them; planting algae to save the moon from running out of oxygen. GoJiyo has a points and currency system- Mios and Jios which earns the user rewards online and in the real world and there’ll be more links with Godrej and other products. For instance you can win a real trip to climb Kilimanjaro with some of your GoJiyo friends.

3. In GoJiyo there’s a friendship engine that tracks your behaviour in GoJiyo, say you like doing adrenalin type activities, it will suggest similar new friends for you to meet, from the GoJiyo Tribe. Second Life doesn't have a feature like that. In fact you can't import friends from other networks, it is your world apart from the rest of your online life.

Yes in both worlds you can party at clubs. And in both your avatar can fly and teleport.

c. Audience

Second Life’s audience is more Western-centric- the majority of Residents are Americans and Europeans, with 7% from Japan and Brazil. Indian user figures are negligable. But 12.1m Residents over the 7 years of operations. A virtual world is, after all, simply an architecture until filled with people. GoJiyo is aimed at young Indians, who are populating it (at time of writing 72,000 avatars in India had been created in 25 days).

d. Business Model & Reason For Doing It

Second Life’s mission is “To connect everyone to an online world that advances the human condition.” It seems Linden Lab are focusing much more towards UGC and customization of the world- you make what kind of fantasy world you want to inhabit. Virtual meetings between people, including companies, through their Enterprise Grid is another growing area. The exchange rate, Linden dollar to USD also mean Linden have a strong business model for this product.

GoJiyo is a branded environment- Godrej and other brands will be present; but it is not a business Godrej is entering, simply a communication platform for the brand. The aim is to build a conversation with a younger target group than it currently has. And give to them some new, hopefully unique, experiences online.

Virtual Worlds Apart

Before I came to India I was interviewing with Second Life to work in Silicon Valley, having met and been inspired by Philip Rosedale (Linden Lab's founder) with my MIT class. I've been involved in new media since my Cybertheatre days in 1997 when I tried out a virtual reality headset and wings and flew to a mountain where I chatted to another girl in cyberspace. It blew my mind then and I felt like today, where bandwidth, Net familiarity and mass Internet enthusiasm have converged it’s time to revisit virtual worlds. 3D is one way the web will develop, towards a visual interface rather than a text-heavy web experience.

When I found out that Godrej, one of India's largest FMCG companies, was revitalizing its brand, I was very excited! I had been lucky enough to meet one of the family a couple of years ago. Then I heard a new virtual world was to be developed by them...I ended up coming to consult on this project.

Before I arrived, I thought India is not ready for a virtual world – low bandwidth and low numbers of people online. I thought I'd try to persuade them to do something innovative for mobile phones instead. However after I had arrived and been part of many consumer focus groups, I realized that I could be wrong- broadband is the norm at 87% of Net subscribers and there were 54m active internet users in 2009. Also people seem incredibly open to and excited by new possibilities. So it could work! But it would still be risky...


Many months were spent refining the concept and functionality. The idea was to create a space for the Godrej brand to communicate to its younger audiences and give them something akin to the brand's concept of Brighter Living. A place where the world is fun and exciting and ever-changing, where you can experience new things with friends and meet new people online. A kind of virtual Disney Land. Can virtual worlds give a large, diverse brand cohesion through a branded environment? What I liked was it wasn't gonna be too heavily in-your-face branding, as no one would want to be there then. This would be a place where other brands could also exist. And where cool events would happen.

We settled on the name:
Go Jiyo means Go Live (live as in 'to live' and not as in 'watch it on TV,
live'). We decided GoJiyo must be dynamic and so its 6 Regions would refresh continually- we’d have a moon colony after the Chandraayan probe discovered water; Rejanm- where you can be reborn; a recreation of the ancient Mauryan empire; an urban environment; an underwater region and an arcticland. GoJiyo would also try to bring together gaming and social networks and 3D environments. So there’d be lots of mini-games as well as larger quests.


Working in India has had its trials and tribulations for me, but I have been impressed by the scale of the project. Our development team are truly global, from Bombay to London to Shanghai to Auckland to Texas...with many interesting characters such as a World of Warcraft addict who is married to someone in Second Life and earned a living building virtual castles; the reputed child genius Adam Frisby, who was hired by IBM at age 12, and went on to co-invent Open Sim, which is of course based on Second Life's platform; and a 3D specialist who heads up the largest virtual goods vendor.


We launched on 22 March and had a pretty astounding number of people signed up-
50,000 in 10 days. I was very worried about launching and there’s still tonnes to do! We launched with only the urban region and are now slowly releasing other regions. But now I do think sometimes it’s better to launch and then fix problems as they come up. You simply cannot simulate problems and properly load test either. And GoJiyo is in public beta, so we’re going to the public with cap in hand and a joint effort to develop it over the next months together, with feedback from users. Of course there are technical issues, every website and especially every 3D environment is always beleaguered by many. Our servers haven’t crashed yet though, which I am thankful for. Famous last words….
I hope not!

Bombay 2010

Reading my last post makes me realise how much my perceptions have changed since then. I haven't blogged for 5 months now, so it's pretty damn obvious that they would. Life in a new country meant my senses were more awake especially at the beginning and the learnings immense, as I grappled with understanding EVERYTHING which was so new and alien, instead of going about with blinkers on, doing the same familiar things in the same ol' place.

Now I go into automation mode and zone out a lot more, especially during the innumerable 9-hour meetings I am called to often....At times I look around and feel I am just so different to the people I see on the streets of Mumbai! I guess this is quite a widespread feeling however. The great thing about living in a place with so many people is that there will be many people like you, even if its 0.5% of the population that'll still be a cool 5m people...

But now I feel pretty much at home in this crazy city, which I keep describing as 'totally nuts but weirdly addictive'. I love Bombay mostly, though I also hate some aspects of life here (like anywhere). I love my apartment, which I am working on to make it more homely. I love my maid Chandbi who, though illiterate, is one of the most intelligent people I've met and weirdly reminds me of my ex-flatmate in London, Marta, in some of the ways she advises me about life. I love my little band of friends, Mukul, Farhad, Neha and Sita...and the Brit crew. I love my job- it is so exciting what we are doing, so creative and so risky too. We launch in a few weeks time, and so are deep in TV promotion,on-ground and online. I think back to my MIT Brand Strategy classes of last year. Never did I know then that I would be so deep into brand revitalisation as I am now....

I guess that's the thing with life, you really never know what will come next, all you can do is trust your instincts and all will be well (to misquote Amir Khan). There's another thing I would never have foretold in a million years: that I got to like Bollywood! Though it's probably as Mukul says, i see them as foreign films which I don't critique strongly.. strangely more lenient than I would be on a Polish film (why?)

The last few weeks we've been frequenting a great series of sundowner parties on Juhu Beach at a venue called Aurus. Every Sunday from 5pm you'll see a fun chilled crowd, including many models, sipping Sula Brut with cranberry juice and boogying away to equally beautiful techno beats.

A trip to Rishikesh and the Kumbh Mela was had last week. I'd never been to the Himalayas before. It is truly divinely beautiful- the River Ganga is emerald green and ice-cold, it rejuvenates you and keeps calling you back once, twice and once again. Her banks are white pristine sand. It was my first glimpse of Indian spiritual tourism, of the type transcribed in Holy Cow and Are You Experienced Yet. I loved being at the home of yoga.

What I hate about Bombay: is the traffic, the noise, the dirt and the way you sometimes have to treat people. Because there are so many I guess ;-)

To my friends: ignore the previous line, Bombay is a very special place. Please come visit me.

Coming back...to freedom

Coming back to live in the Indian subcontinent after many years in the West has given me a special gift. It reminds me of my childhood- the swimming club we frequented, the aunties in pretty saris smelling of fresh talc and 4711 cologne; our maids who did everything and were really part of the family, the respect with which you are treated as you belong to a certain class, the green beans we begged not to eat; the particular taste of the milk, the cute lizards and other little insects you find, the way everything melts so quickly when out of the fridge, the sweating in the midmorning sun, the whirring sound of the fan, the unexpected smells, the sudden shouts of roadside sellers....the way you never knew how long it would take to do anything, the entire unpredictability of life, near brushes with road accidents; the infectious smiles of the people.

But it's on another level now. A level of freedom a child could not have. Freedom to experience anything, any time and with pretty much anyone is a big change. The US also gave me an immense sense of freedom. Here it is enhanced perhaps by the climate, as hot weather always gives me a sense of freedom, freedom to wear fewer clothes, to be outside at any time of night. Coming back is good! Of course our pride in, as well as life in, the region has changed a lot too. Cadburys is made in India for instance (access to Cadburys chocolate was a big issue in my life as a kid).

I realise many of my traits are asian, such as being flexible and relaxed with time and planning. Things that i always struggled to change in the UK. People are willing to share so much time with you and its spontaneous and not pre-planned. The emphasis on personal space and time is less so, but I feel I have a good mix. I feel less lonely here due to it. Here people do things in groups much more, perhaps because of this sheer unpredictability of things. This makes me feel like a teenager again, to just hang out for hours on end with friends. Just being together. Sharing experiences.

Since life has many tribulations here, it seems there's a different level of interaction, a deeper honesty and empathy that comes with knowing everyone has to overcome niggling daily hardships (as well as larger long-term issues). This means relationships are different. To me it seems to favour being more open and holistic. People love chatting and it's harder to keep you hidden. Even at work.

mumbai meri jaan?

I like Mumbai despite:

- the feeling that really noisy buses and rickshaws are driving through my bedroom
- the fact that crossing the road is truly a petrifying experience. There is a genuine lack of traffic lights..
- the daily hardship and grind of life of millions smacks you in the face and enters your blood

So what is it I like about Mumbai?

- The dignity of the people is awe-inspiring
- My personal worries seem pretty unimportant
- I love my team at work – they rock, and the project brief is very exciting! We work hard but the atmosphere is good- professional, digital and creative. My favourite 3 words.
- Indians are some of the warmest, friendliest people alive – both wise and emotional
- I like being a foreigner but looking like an Indian and many things being in English- it’s a strange mix of being foreign and not being foreign (I’m Sri Lankan so I don’t speak Hindi..yes, yes Sri Lankan like MIA, and Murali)
- One of my best friends lives in this city and I’ve always wanted a stint here
- I have other friends from way back, who live here and I enjoy being part of their lives
- I have my own yoga teacher every day for a month for the cost of 1 group class in the UK.
- The food is gorgeous- daily, it is light and vegetarian
- Indians are very social- they like spending time together. In sharp contrast to life in the West which is more independent a.k.a lonely.

Salam Bombay

This morning I landed in Bombay to start a 3-month contract at India's largest FMCG company, Godrej. I like to call the city Bombay rather than Mumbai, and this has more to do with the fact that Bombay signifies tolerance of diverse peoples, not embodied by the current regime. Therefore, it is less about reclaiming the name after colonisation. Remember the name was changed about 40 years after the British left.

My flight was awesome, BA Premium economy is very luxurious, with great service and legroom. Arriving in Bombay, as we stood in line to be screened for H1N1, I realised how airports really do bring to light what a weird time we live in, with this and all the ridiculous security measures where it is disallowed to even carry a bottle of water!

I arrived at midnight a car was sent from Godrej to collect me and take me to my guest house. This is in the Godrej Hillside Colony. The Colony, making us sound like worker ants, is north of the city, in a greener part. Since Godrej seem to make almost everything, my room is like the reality TV show - I wash myself with Godrej soap, I lock my room and wardrobe with Godrej's famous locks,watch TV on a Godrej screen, call with a Godrej phone....

There is still the relentless hum of traffic, the buzz of the tuk-tuks and the endless beeping of horns. This to me is what tires me of Bombay. I am glad to have brought ear plugs, which helped me find peace in yoga this evening.

However the Strategic Marketing office I will be working in is an abyss of calm- everything is white and serene, beautifully designed with bubble chairs and white leather chaise-longues next to the latest design books, sunken meeting rooms and a canteen with black slate tables and floor and Buddha watching over us.It will be a pleasure to work there!

It is always a shock to move from the so-called first to the third world. Today I was struck by the amount of jobs there are here. Even when there are machines, there are people to help other people use the machines, be they escalators in a shopping mall or the vending machine in the kitchen at work. In a country of 1.2bn people, though, seemingly superfluous jobs are a must.


I am off to read Shantaram, the book by Gregory David Roberts that every foreigner surely must read if spending some serious time in this incredible city.
He begins: Bombay has "the sweet, sweating smell of hope..the sour, stifled smell of greed...of heartbreak and the struggle to live..."