When yoga camp almost got me a happily ever after

When I was 23, I went to yoga camp. It was a month-long teachers' training course for working people and I had all sorts of hip classmates. Like my dad, a crazy lady, another ageing surgeon who had been prescribed yoga because she kept leaving bits of gauze inside her patients, and two yoga teachers who woke up every morning and rubbed urine all over themselves.

Among them, was my room-mate. Fifty-eight-year-old A, who was the oldest person doing course, while I was the youngest. Needless to say, I was the source of entertainment during our sessions. New to yoga, I fell asleep during all the meditation sessions. Then, our trainer suggested that while in Shavaasana, I rest my arm on my elbow, so that when I began to drift off, my arm would jerk me awake.

Once I began following this advice, every teacher wanted to demonstrate teaching meditation with me, because the sight of my pudgy arm swaying like a sluggish flag, would keep them giggling through their "breath deeplys", and their "stay focuseds".

A and I were fairly happy as room-mates. She had a run-arounder, lecturee and chief message-bearer, and I had someone to boss me around. And at night, like room-mates do, we would talk about how we were better than all the other students and then share confidences.

Finally, as all topics do when they are tired and have been flogged for several hours, this one too, turned to my weight. A was very concerned. "Sad, sad." She would say, shaking her head. Then, we would talk of other things. Jaggery-banana puddings, her husband's gout, how to make soup from flat-bean peelings.

Something we'd talk about a lot, was her concern for her son. Tall, strapping and good-looking, he lived in China and needed a wife. Someone who could make chapatis and go out for Chinese noodles on weekends. "Sad sad," A would say, thinking of her masterpiece, this boy who lived in China and craved chapatis.

I was 23. At 23, every single man is a possible husband, a possible wild romantic story, a possible happily ever after. At 23, even the mention of a somewhere son, unattached, the same age, give or take a few decades, is enough to send the mind wandering. Perhaps a pink-themed wedding? Perhaps the bride enters, lowered on to the stage on a majestic snow-white swan? Perhaps he composes and sings a song that she had no idea he was writing for her?

I questioned more. Ran errands more. Hoping that in me, she would see the potential India-China culture-loving daughter-in-law. Hoping that, at least, she might give me that manna for the single soul - an "intro". But, she never did.

A few weeks later, we were deemed pulled and twisted enough to make passable yoga teachers and it was time to leave. We ate our last Sattvic meal. Placed our foreheads to the Earth and thanked Her for our existence, kissed a few cows, and then we all hugged and Hari Om-med and promised to do 108 Surya Namaskars a day. And then, A turned to me and said, "If you like, I can introduce you to a boy. Like you, he too is not perfect. You are fat. He's a bit short. He's a bit bald. And, he's crossed-eyed. It'll be a perfect match."