YOGA TEACHER IN A SUIT

BY MIHIR SRIVASTAVA

Zubin Atré doesn’t fall into a category. He is in his own category.

A man who has travelled the world has a strong anchorage of a loving family. He has experienced different cultures from close quarters. And is driven, asks the right questions, and shapes his worldview by way of experience.

A lad from Punjab, who is a global citizen, is married to a graceful Italian lady and has two most adorable sons and is currently living in Delhi.

He is the best teacher of his children. That also explains why he is a very good yoga teacher.

It will not be an exaggeration to say, he’s a wizard when it comes to the body. He understands how it functions as a composite unit with all its complexities.

Each one of us has our own quintessential body, like mind, assets, and limitations. Zubin gets to know a body fairly intuitively. So if there are eight students in his class, in his mind he’s taking eight individual classes, and his students feel that undivided attention.

Zubin's distinct take on life is evident by the space he inhabits, and the way he functions. He is meticulous, scrupulous and attentive. He creates a conducive, quintessential environment to meet his potential.

Comfortably seated on the floor over a blue cushioned carpet, with legs stretched out under a low table covered with a Japanese thermal blanket, there are at least a dozen books lying on his table in neat piles. A coffee mug sits in between. The books change periodically, some get to stay longer. "I read many books at the same time," he says. And can start from where he left off without much disruption like meeting an old friend.

Reading a book is like having a silent conversation with the author, and then he switches his attention to another text and a new dialogue begins. “I have attention deficit syndrome,” he states in a matter-of-fact way. Perhaps, he finds very few texts interesting enough to hold his attention for long. And the books he likes becomes part of him, and make it a point to recommend them to close friends. He likes to spread happiness. This is one of the many ways.

Zubin has everything he needs in his vicinity. Time is a finite resource and he wants quality time with self. That also means he’s picky about the people he meets, only when he’s convinced it won’t be a drain on time, more importantly, energy.

From where he is seated, he faces a big room with an orange wall-to-wall mat-carpet, which gives the wall around a halo glow, soothing instrumental music plays in the backdrop feels like water gushing down the stream, some other time twittering of birds at a distance, and the emptiness of the expansive room has a meditative calmness to it.

There's a planner where he dots down things to do, and when the plan is concretised, as it mostly involves the participation of others, he lists it in his appointment diary. It becomes sacrosanct.

He likes to play with ideas. And he keeps jotting them down. These are not hollow ideas, or a pipe dream, each of them is a substantive business plan waiting to be executed, fairly pragmatic, and not a castle in the air. While he goes about his day, he keeps himself hydrated. A two-litre sipper sits by his side.

If you know him well, it won’t come as a surprise that he has his own version of yoga: Atré Yoga. He's not a conventional yoga teacher, and even detests the stereotypical image of a yoga teacher. He likes to wear suits, and is unapologetic about it, to the contrary, has one of the best collections of suits in the town procured from all over the world.

“Yoga is not an exalted state of being,” he says with emphasis, “instead, a very natural one.” And adds, “Yoga can be done all the time. Like I could be meditating now sitting on a couch. I don't have to get out of my life to practice yoga,” he explains as it’s “integral to a healthy living.”

He’s inspired by simple mechanics, the concepts of pulleys, the axel, the ball and socket, levers and wheels. He has a penchant to explain complex ideas lucidly. His children, and so are his students, the beneficiaries. Last seen he made his sons, preschoolers, observe live bugs crawl on an earthen pot.

Yoga or otherwise, Zubin draws information, inspiration from varied sources, people he meets, texts he reads, his own years of experience of teaching, his interest to organise resources to do something worthwhile, and a certain ambition to be a changemaker. The change, as India's father of nation, Mahatma Gandhi famously said, begins with self. He also said, “My life is my message.” And Zubin is fairly strict with himself.

Perhaps, this explains why he inspires so much trust and confidence in his students.

The Teacher

Zubin transforms when he’s taking a yoga class. He speaks as if he’s entered his students’ bodies and minds too. Not just a witness, but intuitively relive them in substantial measure.

To an observer, he seems to be driven by a hidden force. Though there may be more than one student at a time, he deals with each of them individually. He knows exactly when a student needs help, and he intervenes, easing the process of getting into the right position and holding it. His mere touch–the applying of pressure at the appropriate point for an appropriate duration with appropriate force—turns the body of his student into warm wax, malleable.

“There is no grade system,” he says, “all my students are on an equal footing.” He’s not judging. He’s just making the energy flow through their bodies. The students develop a quintessential need, that of his intervention. With time, their body becomes more receptive and supple. His constant emphasis is on breathing and uses metaphors to explain the dynamics of yoga and how gently yet assertively to enter into a position, and sustain the stretch, and by shifting the weight of the body, which allows different muscles to come into play. A pointed stretch, the blood gushing in the veins, and in this physicality of things the student attains a calm mind.

Zubin’s presence allows his students to focus, not just on themselves but on the task at hand. He is an enabling energy, which does wonders and gives them the confidence to do things they otherwise feel incapable of. He makes the whole process easy and fulfilling. His metaphors are geometrical shapes in most instances, like triangles and squares or a parabolic loop. His instructions are experiential as if he's doing it with his students and feels the stretch, pull, pain, stiffness, and cramps as they do.

There are active and passive positions depending on the amount of energy required to hold that particular position. It's not so much about the struggle to reach there but the insistence to persist in a position. It opens the body and makes it easier. It's the mind that takes longer to open up, and for that Zubin's calm presence is magical.

Zubin is driven. He has come a long way. He has to go a long way. He is a changemaker.