graduation day

--> the one month yoga program culminated yesterday in a graduation ceremony. all 13 of us students in the ancient path, were there, trepidly awaiting our test results. we sat indian style in a circle, on the smooth wooden floor of the rooftop shala, looking like a bunch of seniors in a high school ceremony in a small hippie-dippe school.

one by one, sunil, the coordinator of ashtanga mysore yoga, called our names, and read off our scores. his light eyes sparkled in the diminishing sun, peering through the window walls and tall beige curtains.

“speak up,” dr. malika, our teacher in the patanjali sutras, gently scolded sunil, who spoke like a man perpetually in a library, with his head in a book.

“most of you have passed,” sunil proudly announced. there was a silent uproar.

for a moment you could hear graduation tunes playing in our heads, draping imaginary gowns over our yoga tights and tanktops. the song materialized in the form of thunder, as sunil stood and grabbed the 200-hour yoga certificates from the ledge, by the alter, above the yoga mats that crumbled before our virabadhrassana's and parsarita paddontonasana's just that morning.

monsoons lurked behind june, two days away, as my classmates stood, one after the other to collect their certificates and smile for the flashing camera's: claudia the glow from spain, with diamonds in her eyes, olivia from bolivia her partner in crime, with flowers in her hair, brittany the teacher from dallas with flowers on her pants, jamie, the invincible elastic woman from ottawa, yves, the man of many-talents from belgium, charolette the photographer from syndey, kat, the aussie with plots of a yoga studio, padma, the hatha-yoga teacher from kerala, job, the smoking acrobat from the netherlands, ellie the human rights defender from argentina, melody, the honey-voiced illustrator from france.

...

our teachers trickled in as we began huddling for a group picture. first praveen, his dimples revealing playful plotting for spicier pictures.

“this is a yoga class. lets take yoga pictures,” he said. like a masterful conductor of a symphony, he began orchestrating group asanas of scorpion poses, over urdvah dhanurasana over supta kurmasana. ramesh-ji, a virtuoso in adjustments, came just in time to align us in perfect angles and prescribe adendums to our intricacies.

some of us watched our peers, some were in conversation with our teachers, some of us eyed the man who rushed with two large bags of aromatic goodies. our graduation was sealed with mysore-style h'orderves – spicy mix, jilabi's and a mysore pack – a golden sweet that crumbles in your mouth.

thunder cracked, rain poured and we quietly stood in a sacred circle and paid homage to our past month.