[Chhanda Das]

How Yoga helped me become a better driver

Background
From an early age, I used to have occasional bursts of violent temper despite being a female. My Grandfather who was an F.R.C.S. doctor recognized the warning signs early on and got me involved with the repairs and maintenance of the vehicles in our family as a way of distracting me and keeping me busy. There wasn't much else to do in our nondescript corner of rural Assam apart from my studies. That is how my lifetime hobby of learning about vehicles started.

I started practicing Yoga when I became a teenager around half a century ago with my elder brother as my guide. Later, I also gained admission to a college under Calcutta University with Political Science as my Honours subject. It was during this time that I gained my first driver's license when I went back to Assam during the summer holidays. One of the first things my family members noticed was that I used to easily get very angry/frustrated/irritated at the slightest of provocations whenever I was behind the steering wheel of a car. Bad roads, unruly riders, careless drivers, etc used to make me so mad. It got to the point where my family members would be scared of letting me sit behind the steering wheel of any vehicle.

Later I gained admission with my brother to the Shivananda Yogashram and Yogic Hospital as students under the tutelage of Swami Joggeswaranandaji Maharaj aka Boro Mama. I used to go there after finishing my morning college and return in the evening. The training sessions were extremely rigorous to say the least as we had to perform each asana at least 50 times every single day for five days every week for more than 7 years. We were prohibited from eating fish, meat, eggs, onion, garlic and mustard during this time. We also learned Pranayams or various breath control exercises along with the compulsory meditation sessions. These helped me a lot in managing my anger issues while teaching me the value of patience and perseverance.

When I went back home during the summer holidays, there was a marked difference in my driving style. I was able to maintain a calm demeanour and anticipate other drivers' behaviour with aplomb. Such was the improvement that I started getting complimented for my calm, collected and confident driving by my friends, family and neighbours alike. Mission accomplished !

Forget Instagram, the photographs below were taken in 1977 nearly two decades before the internet was launched in India. I am the one in black in all the photographs below except in the one where I am with the trophy for the All Bengal Yoga-Sundari Championship. The photographs involving the raised circular platform were captured in the courtyard of Maharaja Nandakumar's house in Baranagar, Calcutta.

1) Here I was performing the Chakrasana or wheel pose for a group performance

2) Here I was performing the Varisara Dhauti which involves siphoning out the excess stomach acids through a pipe after drinking lots of water. The basic procedure is not very different from performing an engine flush in a car.

3) Here I was performing a variation of the Dhanurasana or bow pose

4) Here I was performing an advanced variation of the Ustrasana or camel pose

5) Here I was performing the Poorna Bhujangasana or the full serpent pose

6) Here I was performing the Poorna Chakrasana or the full wheel pose

7) Here I was performing a variation of Hanumanasana or monkey pose

8) Here I am dedicating the trophy that I won in the All Bengal Yoga-Sundari Championship to my teacher. He was approximately around 70 years old when this picture was taken and he didn't colour his hair or mustache. Incredulously, he was the only person I have known who was able to shed the skin from his body like a snake and grow it back again. Since the process was extremely difficult, dangerous and time-consuming, he had only done it twice during his entire lifetime. Unfortunately, I do not know the entire process but I know for a fact that fresh pomegranate juices have a major role to play in the skin regeneration process while the skin shedding process requires a good source of heat like a wood fire burning for days. In the words of the immortal Wiliam Shakespeare, "There are more things in Heaven and Earth ...". Sadly, Boro Mama passed away in 2014

9) And here is a thumbnail-worthy picture where I am performing the Poorna Chakrasana to emulate the "O" in YOGA

Here is the last picture with some of my fellow classmates, some of the staff including my Yoga teacher taken after I completed the basic course before I went back to Assam to get married :-

Around the time of my Yogic education, two memorable incidents happened as follows :-

1) While I was a student, a Japanese documentary film-making crew who were a part of the Indo-Japanese collective visited us and shot a documentary with us. One of the crew's female members Hiroko Horinouchi stayed back with us to learn Yoga. Later she went back to Japan to start her own Yoga institute. Here she is in the middle.

2) A few days after I had passed the basic course, my Yoga teacher was contacted by a representative of probably the most powerful political family in India. They were looking for a female Yoga instructor with fluency in the Hindi language for a certain lady of that family. My Yoga teacher wanted to recommend me as an instructor for her. However, my family did not allow this because her husband, who was alive at the time, was infamous for misbehaving with ladies, to say the least. I will not take any names here but old-timers will definitely know who I am talking about.

Disclaimer : All the stuff above is true to the best of my knowledge and belief. Also, if you find any of the above offensive in any way then please forgive the ramblings of an old lady.

I hope that you enjoyed reading about my experiences from a bygone era and I wish you happy and safe drives ahead

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[V.Narayan]

Oh my what a wonderful topic to start. First congratulations on those advanced yogic poses you are able to do. And congratulations on the trophy you won.

I assume you still practise yoga. I agree yoga and meditation, practised well and practised regularly, do change your mind, demeanour, outlook and inner strength and ability not to get provocated. I love yoga. I'll confess I'm at a very basic level of two dozen basic poses I learnt as a teenager in the 1970s and continued thereafter occasionally joining a Sivananda class in the neighbourhood. I am too lazy to make the effort to go further.

I never linked yoga to peaceful driving but I see the connection you refer to. But being a Dilliwallah I reserve the right, while driving, to mutter a colourful commentary to myself on fellow drivers. Yoga and meditation does help with creating a sense of basic detachment from the hundred provocations and negative signals we receive from the environment be it bad news or someone's rude behaviour. That helps.

I give yoga the credit that all my spare parts continue to function well and none have needed major repair or replacement yet.

[Samurai]

Wow, wonderful images from the 70s. The guru doesn't look a day above 50.

I too learned yoga in the early 80s, but my interest shifted to martial arts, and I never really kept up with yoga. I could do Mayurasana until the early 20s, not later. Now in my 50s, I might re-consider yoga again to get some flexibility back.

[JoshMachine]

Wow, I feel humbled to read your journey of yogic achievements. And you say you have been practicing yoga for close to 50 years now

I fully agree with you that yoga can help one become a better driver. I can almost relate this to my own "evolution" since I started doing yoga almost 2.5 years ago during the covid lockdown. And I wondered why it took me so long to initiate this in my life!
However since then, dealing with provocative situations - both personal & professional - has become a tad better given the new-found understanding of mind & body reactions to various states of emotions - be it on road or sitting in office.

Thanks for bringing out this perspective to all on the forum. Please continue to share more anecdotes from your life experiences, which I am sure will be a source of inspiration for many here on the forum.

Having started this journey just recently, I am still trying to learn the ropes. For last couple of years, on the annual Rathsaptami day, I have been trying to do my bit and manage 108 suryanamaskars.

[download2live]

Originally Posted by Chhanda Das

[
Later I gained admission with my brother to the Shivananda Yogashram and Yogic Hospital as students under the tutelage of Swami Joggeswaranandaji Maharaj aka Boro Mama.

I could not google any info on him. He seems to be one of the hidden gems.
Also by rough calculations, he lived beyond 100 years.

Has he written any books?

At what point does a yoga guru says to the learner that his education is complete? And what the learner does after that?

And we need more details on skin change yoga !!

[ValarMorghulis]

Kudos on the fabulous yoga poses. This is quite an inspiration.
I've been doing yoga since 2016 and now I aim for a new pose every year that supplement's my fitness training. Last year was Parsva bakasana, year before that kakasana and the year before that was sirsasana.

This year there are two aims:
1. Hanumanasana or the front split in yoga
2. Side plank flag in calisthenics (quite difficult)
Let's see where the year takes me

[Chetan_Rao]

Thanks for a rather uniquely interesting thread.

As someone who got introduced to yoga as a young child and stayed with it, I can personally vouch for the benefits it provides, physical and mental. Yoga contributed immensely to staying nimble and injury-free while I was active in sports growing up, and is a huge stress-buster as an adult.

Even today, yoga and walking are my primary forms of exercise. They're sustainable and do-anywhere due to minimal equipment requirements, and the benefits are only limited by how far you're willing to go.

Kudos for your achievements, some of the pictures are enough to induce muscle aches just looking at them.

[RGK]

Astounded to see the yoga poses you practised when you were younger. Without a doubt, this is one of the most important techniques accessible to prevent illness in the body.

I do yoga for my health (obviously not consistently), and it brings me great peace and satisfaction. I haven't connected this to driving, but I will absolutely remember this from your class. One of my personal experiences involved having kidney stones, My yoga instructor adjusted a few postures, and to my surprise, the stone came out after practising the new poses for a week.

Had the opportunity to meet the Transport Department's principal secretary, and he shared about the advantages of yoga. Yoga was introduced way back in 2009 by Metropolitan Transport Corp (MTC), Chennai in a bid to regulate drivers who handles the biggest vehicles on the road.
When he was chairman of Aavin, Tamilnadu, he instituted yoga for the staff members responsible for packaging and shipping cold milk packets. Yoga prevented the numbness in their fingertips.

[crdi]

I have no anger issues. But, of late I have noticed that the more I venture out on the road with a vehicle, the more misanthropic my overall behaviour is becoming. I have been thinking of trying out yoga to stop it from worsening. Your story is definitely motivational for me.

[livetodrive]

Awesome inspiring thread. I could connect my car driving journey with the content. I learnt to drive at Delhi. Average speed in the city was pretty decent but there were aggressive drivers around which influenced me in a bad way though I am a peace-loving person by nature.

With growing age, I try to make a point to do breathing exercises and simple stretching exercises daily. Doing that keeps me agile and alert throughout the day. Also, while driving I can observe couple of changes in my mindset like "pehle aap" and the sense that reaching safe is more important than reaching fast. Experience matters but the exercises helped me too.

Please share more on yoga for mid aged people like us which will definitely help in getting out of our mundane lifestyle.

[srikrishna717]

Wow! What an interesting post! Love the perfection you were able to achieve in those Asana's, I hope you still maintain the same levels even today. I am in my second innings w.r.t Yoga and I completely agree with you on how it keeps us reasonably sane in this stressful world!

Thanks for sharing

[maddy42]

Amazing writeup and kudos to your effort to do it continuously for 7 years and a couple of hours every day. How has the practice continued? Do you take breaks like a cheat day?

The reasons i have given myself to not work out is a long list and a thread like yours makes me realise that i am not getting younger and to start before its too late.
I live in a area of a lot of yoga ashrams and schools and a lot of foriegn tourists come here for months to practise and learn so time for me to do so too.

[TorqueyTechie]

Wow!! Performing Yoga from 50 years that's incredible. Hats off to you. If I am as active and energetic as you are say 10 years from now that would be great for me

I can relate to the topic though as the days that I work out, I tend to get less stressed with traffic (or work). I used to always link it to the excess energy being burnt off while working out not leaving any for picking up fights unnecessarily.

[HooghlyBoy]

I live just 2 Kms away from the Sivananda Yogashram. During my High School days I was suffering from severe Food Allergy and I wasn't getting benefitted from medical treatment.
An aged Teacher of mine suggested me to visit the place,IIRC it was 1999 I feel blessed as I had met Swami Yogeshwaranand Ji. I got immensely benefited from their Yoga instructions and eventually got cured.
Unfortunately this place didn't get the due recognition it deserved but still remains a popular place for people staying in North suburbs of Kolkata.