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Yoga, which is popular worldwide
and which now has its own international day courtesy Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, is taking roots even in Pakistan. This Islamic country now
has dozens of yoga teachers, including women, who are active in all leading
Pakistani cities. Some of them claim to impart yoga lessons to bureaucrats,
military men, the incumbent Sindh Chief Minister, a former Governor of
Punjab, and a growing number of other enthusiasts.
Yogi Haider is the most popular
of Pakistani yoga teachers. He has established a centre named Yoga Pakistan
and Way of Nature in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad and boasts of
having around 10,000 students in Karachi, Rawalpindi and Lahore, apart from
Islamabad.
"My students come from all
sections of society — students, doctors, politicians, celluloid
personalities, bureaucrats, armymen, etc. When I started in 2004, nobody
believed that yoga could be a holistic way of keeping your body and soul in
shape. But now there is a clamour to learn the postures of this natural way
of exercise. Even my wife Shumaila has joined me as an instructor and we
organise workshops in all leading cities of Pakistan. The present Sindh
Chief Minister, Qayem Ali Shah and former Punjab Governor, Ghulam Mustafa
Khar, have attended our classes," said Haider.
However, Haider did not want to
disclose the names of the army officers and civil servants who attended his
workshop in Rawalpindi.
Haider had a
"dramatic" introduction to yoga and studied the discipline in
India and Nepal for years before becoming an expert.
"While working in Saudi
Arabia in the early 1990s, I had to undergo a painful operation. My doctor
suggested that if I could control my mind and body, my suffering would
lessen. I tried and it worked. Then I delved deep into the art of breathing
and other methods of controlling your body. In 1994, I went to Nepal in
search of yoga gurus and came to India in 1997. I found a guru in Satya
Narayan Goenka and learnt vipassana meditation, and other yogasanas like
pranayam. I returned to Pakistan in 2004 and I have active here since
then," said Haider.
Haider charges Pakistani Rs
8,000 a month for a one-month course.
He said that he has even
contacted the Pakistan Cricket Board to help the cricketers learn yoga to
fight stress and fatigue.
Two other Pakistanis, Yogi
Wajahat and Yogi Baqer run their centres in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad,
Faisalabad, Hyderabad, Multan and Sukkur.
Wajahat describes his variety of
yoga as the Indus Yoga. "Yoga originated in the Indus region. Somehow,
these exercise techniques remained dormant but now kapalbhati, pranayam,
vipassana are known words here. People are showing an increased keenness to
learn these exercises," said Wajahat. He added that most of his
clients show interest in improving memories, stopping hair loss and enhancing
weight loss. "Yoga has the power to cure all these ailments," he
said.
Wajahat did not disclose how
much he earned, but said that he learnt his yoga from various gurus, some
of them Indian. Yogi Baqer and his wife run classes for the diplomatic
corps living in Islamabad. They refused to share any information about
their work. Similarly, Aisha Chapra and Survat Sumaira are two famous lady
yoga teachers based in Islamabad and Lahore. Aisha even organises yoga
retreats for her clients and tours various places in Pakistan like Chitral
and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Sumaira runs her classes in Lahore and has
mostly young students, many of them girls.
The Sunday Guardian checked
online, and via journalistic sources in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore to
find that many other little known yoga teachers are active in Pakistan.
When asked whether they had faced any opposition to their classes from
hardliners and whether yoga was termed a part of Hindu culture, they said
that one of Yogi Haider's workshops was attacked in Lahore, but largely
yoga has found supporters in Pakistan. "Health is a universal concern.
Yoga is drawing more people every day. The increase in the number of yoga
teachers and their flourishing businesses are a testimony to that. Yoga's
health benefits have prevailed upon all other concerns," said Haider.
Ironically, despite yoga becoming popular in Pakistan, the Pakistan High
Commission in New Delhi refused visas to two yoga teachers from India. The
teachers were to participate in the International Yoga Day celebrations at
the Indian mission in Islamabad on Sunday
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