In the chaotic jamboree that is a Mumbai traffic junction, there is a sudden, serendipitous reminder of another way of life. A simple board announces that this corner in Malad West, where the Marve Link Road meets the serpentine S V Road, is Swami Sivananda chowk. It is particularly poignant that on September 8 when thousands of yoga freaks the world-over must have celebrated his birthday with his rollicking hymns this corner of Mumbai, despite bearing his name, ignored it. Amidst billboards blaring hardware and shops warring salwar kameez who has time to hark back to a Himalayan life?
As a yoga instructor trained in his school of integral yoga I am continually amazed at how Swami Sivananda's name continues to draw yoga buffs from the six continents to remote corners of India. Annually thousands visit ashrams set up his various disciples around India. Even the most crusty ones will then endure sitting cross-legged, to mutate into joyous children. Swaying, they will sing silly rhymes off-tune, exhorting each other to 'Adapt, adjust, accomodate.' Each will carry back home a personal tale of epiphany, a moment when the coin drops and things become clearer, whether it involves negotiating a difficult scorpion pose or grappling with a moral dillemma or cleaning the toilet without cribbing.
It was at the Malad branch of the Divine Life Society (headquartered in Rishikesh) that I picked up his amazing books. He'd written over 300, covering religion, philosophy, different yogas, yogic practices, naturopathy. For just Rs 35 you could feel young and alive with his book 'How to live for hundred years', and stop counting sheep for Rs 45 with his book 'How to get sound sleep.' And a rare treat, all his discourses are available in audio format, for the heart-breaking rate of Rs 45 per cassette. Unfortunately, this treasure trove is open only when a staffer is available. My last few attrempts to visit it have been unsuccessful.
As the paisa vasool range of the books indicate, his was a tradition which gave without taking. Swami Sivananda (1887-1963) broke Brahminical tradition by learning martial arts, studied medicine but decided to cross the seas and served in Malaysia before he decided to chuck it all up for a yogic life. Even today the DLS conducts two-months all-paid-for yoga training (only men) at its Rishikesh ashram, while the Mumbai branch offers free yoga classes at the Suchak Hospital (near Malad subway). Every year Rishikesh teachers visit Mumbai to give a fortnight's training in yoga, for which only the Rs 50 registration fee is charged.
So what if nobody around the chowk knows of the man after whom it is named? Passing it daily I feel reassured that in some recess of our collective minds, even in its cob-webbed corners, we still have space for the deathless, mystic India.
