Pollution forced him to give up morning yoga

NEWDELHI: R P Singh is a fit man for his age. The 45-year old LIC agent has been practising yoga for over two decades. From the time he moved to Meet Nagar in Shahdara in 2005, he has exercised outdoors in the neighbourhood park.

An important part of his ritual is breathing exercises that help regulate the flow of breath and energy, according to yogic literature. That is unless you live in a place as polluted as Delhi.

Singh learnt it the hard way. When air quality dropped into the severe category this November, his yoga group, a loose community of a dozen or so middle-aged men, abandoned their yoga exercises for a few days. It was the same story last year.

Even after they started exercising again they restricted breathing exercises. “We are doing kapalbhati but not anulom-vilom pranayama because it will be dangerous for our health,” he said.

“The pollution will get into our lungs.” Kapalbhati requires forceful exhalation while anulom-vilom refers to vigorous alternate nostril breathing. Even nadi shodhana pranayama, which involves gentler alternate-nostril breathing, isn’t practised anymore. When air quality is severe or very poor no outdoor activity is advisable, especially not those that involve vigorous breathing. “It was different 10 years ago. We think it is because of traffic and population,” Singh said. “...for every person there are two cars.”

During summer, Singh starts around 6.45am, and does yoga for an hour. Once

We are doing kapalbhati but not anulomvilom pranayama because it will be dangerous for our health.

RP SINGH

winter sets in, he starts at 7.45am after dropping his two children — 14-year-old Nidhi and 17-year-old Naman — to school. By now he’s got used to the smog-related restrictions on yoga, but this year, his children made him think. Over dinner one night, Nidhi asked him to consider leaving Delhi. His son agreed.

“Children understand the effects of pollution on health better than us,” Singh says.keeping them indoors and shutting schools on polluted days is not a lasting solution. As long as vehicles jam narrow roads, garbage burns and industry spews venomous emissions, his children will continue to wonder if they would be better off somewhere else.