When I was new to the world of yoga, I once overheard my teacher decline a dinner invitation. “I have a 7.30 am class tomorrow. I have to be in bed by 10. Your dinners usually last till midnight,” she said in an assertive tone. Clearly, the person on the other line was not happy. “It gets too tiring for me. I can’t do it,” my teacher continued, more irked than apologetic. Back then, at 24, I thought it was age. She was 50 at the time, and in my ignorant mind, at that age, you couldn’t function on less than 10 hours of sleep. It wasn’t until a couple of years later, when my practice became central to my well-being, and my lifestyle started to revolve around it, without much deliberate effort on my part, that I realised that it wasn’t age, but healthy living that was costing her a social life.
Healthy living is not only about exercising and eating right. It is a whole way of being which encompasses how and when you interact with others and yourself, and even begins to influence what you enjoy and don’t enjoy. Slowly, but surely, you become a different person – more grounded and focused, gentle in your ways, optimistic or at least realistic about things, equanimous through life’s ups and downs, with a lowered tolerance for unnecessary chatter. Needless to say, your daily routine includes a workout, and if you are anything like me, and don’t like to work out in the evenings, then prepare yourself for early mornings at the cost of late nights.
I didn’t choose healthy living. I chose movement. When I started my journey of yoga, I used to eat whatever I wanted, stayed up late, went out often, and drank like a fish. I started practicing yoga simply because I wanted to exercise, move my body, and yoga was becoming fashionable. But, with time, and despite myself, yoga became an overpowering force in my life. My diet changed on autopilot, and without having to make an effort, I started eating smaller portions (read: no more than what I actually needed) and stopped eating junk (read: food that made me feel heavy and bloated and compromised my sleep). Little by little, I started losing interest in small talk… It felt draining, and insignificant, and not worth my time. I would be out with friends, and zone out of gossip about friends of friends and their uncles, and whose wedding was the most extravagant. It felt like a waste of time, and with every rendezvous, I felt less motivated to show up for the next one.
But, all else aside (I value politeness and civility and am okay nodding along for about half an hour or so), what really hit my social life was my routine, diet, and diminished alcohol intake. The time I would leave a party became the time I now wake up for my practice. Everybody’s favourite foods – all the naan and gravies, and the pizzas and fries, cakes and cookies, became my annual indulgence. And most importantly, I went from being the beer-guzzling, tequila-downing, gin-sipping fun, carefree girl to the wine-drinking “posh” archetype. But, here’s the thing – I am anything but posh. I am simply no longer a fan of debilitating hangovers.
With slight envy, I started weeding out friends who didn’t have to wake up in the wee hours to get an hour of workout in before their day got hectic – those who could roll out of bed, and straight out to start their day. Those who didn’t mind staring at the laptop with tired eyes and foggy minds. Those who would gorge on a greasy, cheesy lunch to get over the previous night’s debauchery. They weeded me out with the same fervour – they didn’t want my boring presence looming over their crazy parties that ended only when the sun hit the horizon.
As a 20 something, I was scared of healthy living. I thought that ghar ka khana, restricting yourself to two glasses of wine, and working out every day was for old people – you did that in your 40s or 50s. I was terrified that my whole life would change, and that I would no longer be the “cool” girl. I wasn’t all that off in my fears… healthy living may not be only for old people, but it certainly changed my entire life.
For me, there’s life before yoga, and life after yoga. The former constituted of those who still don’t exercise and suffer from backaches and whatnot, eat chaat on a weekly basis, if not more, and equate weekends with binge drinking. The latter includes those who have their own form of fitness regimes – some lift weights, some practice martial arts, some swim every day, eat to live and not live to eat, and still have taste buds intact at the end of a night of drinking. I lost my friend circle, yes. But, I gained a whole new one, with a wavelength that matches mine.
