Fresh Air

We turn off the busy Grand Trunk Road and enter a quiet, dusty track. The air smells clean and sweet. Tall trees stand on either side, like sprightly bouquets lined up to welcome us. Wispy white clouds fleck the blue sky. Uma rolls down the window, thirstily quaffing the forest-scented breeze.

'How far?' she asks.

'Any moment now,' I reply.

"You know what, I feel half healed just travelling to see this dude," she says, wrapping the blue dupatta around her head to avoid mussing her hair. It is obviously with the idea of being suitably dressed to meet a mantra-spouting healer that she has chosen to wear a simple cotton salwar-kurta today. I smile to myself.

A few minutes later, we reach Manoj's home, a small mud-walled cottage surrounded by a vast stretch of ground, beyond which lies a lush expanse of wheat fields. A giant tree towers above the cottage, its long knarled roots hanging down thick branches like an old man's knobbly fingers. "Wow," says Uma, with a little whistle.

"This banyan," I tell her, "is supposed to be more than 200 years old." The shapely eyebrows rise, impressed. For a few moments, Uma stands there, silently soaking in the scene: the hand painted mango and bird motifs on the front door of the cottage, the pubescent white sal blossoms sprinkled on the grounds, the Shivalik foothills in the distance, merging softly into the skyline. 'Such peace,' she murmurs. Then, perhaps unsettled by her own uncharacteristic enjoyment of this serene interlude, she turns to me and demands, "Where's he?"

It is a short walk to Manoj's 'clinic', right behind the cottage. The place smells overpoweringly of machine oil, hot tyres, cleaning fluid and engine fume. Smack in the middle of the cavernous machine shed stands an antiquated yellow car. Its bonnet is open, and Manoj is bent into the engine-housing. We both look at him. I see a man deep in meditation. By the look on her face, I know Uma doesn't realise this is the person we have come to see. "What the heck?" her eyes seem to say.

Manoj fits a part into place, and turns. We hug lightly. "Hi, this is Uma. Uma, Manoj."

I can see Uma blush a little. My nephew always has this effect on women, what with his angular features and tall frame. More than that, I think it is his eyes and his smile--they draw you to him.

Wiping his hands on a soiled duster, Manoj smiles warmly at Uma. "Hi, there. Good to meet you." She smiles back. "Likewise." I can see she is surprised that he speaks perfect English.

We follow Manoj into his courtyard, and settle down on stools fashioned from fallen tree stumps. Uma looks curiously around, taking in the big earthen bowls filled with aromatic herbs and spices, golden wheat grains drying on white cotton sheets, gleaming pickle jars soaking up the sunshine. A very old woman dressed in a bright red-and-green sari is sitting in a corner, energetically pounding something in a pestle and mortar. "Lassi?" Manoj asks, and when we nod eagerly, he asks the lady, whom we call Amma, to make the beverage.

Uma says, eagerly, "What can I say, this is just awesome, your place. How long have you been living here all alone?"

"Actually, I have way too much company here," says Manoj, smoothing back his tousled hair with still-greasy fingers. "I'm on first-name basis with most of the 100 people in the nearby village. I came here three years ago to sell this property off. But then I met this ancient vaidyaji. Next thing I knew, I was so hooked to Ayurveda that I decided to shift here. It's amazing how much I've picked up from him. Which explains why my aunt here thinks I can help you."

Clearly embarrassed, Uma says, "I…er, well, I've been under a lot of stress lately. I'm worried enough to have taken off work for the first time in five years. Looking at you, I've been thinking: maybe this is it. Just chuck it all."

Manoj leans forward. "The interesting thing is, Uma, that I haven't really chucked it all. I'm doing projects for companies in the US. I go regularly to Delhi to meet clients and catch movies. But yes, I have cut down on my commitments, so the stress-levels have dropped. I did the computer whizkid routine in Silicon Valley, spent a quarter of my life inside a glass office breathing stale air, earned fat paycheques. But I was burning out so fast I would have been extinguished by now."

"I always wonder," says Uma, "I have a decent job, a good managerial position. I do my best, I deliver. I should be happy, damn it. Why am I so stressed?"

Manoj takes a last swig of the delicious lassi, and arises, saying, "Come with me, I'll explain why." We walk back to the garage. He grabs a switch-panel hanging from the ceiling. A quick whoosh of compressed air, and the old Volkswagen rises gently. Once the wheels of the car are slightly above our heads, Manoj stops the lift. Touching the right front tyre, he asks Uma, "Do you see yourself somewhere here?"

She shakes her head.

He says, ""See. This is the car, your Management, and this is the wheel assembly, your Workforce. The wheel takes the car places, but every little bump the wheel feels shouldn't be felt in the car. Otherwise, the Management will scream. That's why they have you: the shock absorber. All the weight of the car first rests on you, and then passes on to the wheel. You take the stress from both sides: the aspirations of the car and the frustrations of the wheel." He pauses, then asks, "Do you now see yourself here?"

And Uma does.

"That's it," he says. "No mystery."

"Oh, that's brilliantly explained," she says. "And you? What are you?"

"I used to be a cog in the wheel. But now I'm a lightning rod," he says. "I attract the energy but it seeps through me harmlessly to the ground. I don't earn as much as I used to, but I make enough to live well. For every demanding project, I have an old beauty to restore in my garage--revives not only the car, but me too. I may pig out on burgers in Delhi, but I return to Amma's food, which promises to keep me alive to a ripe young age of 120. And the morning after an all-nighter at the disco, I find solace in my little kitchen garden," he says, pointing to the ripe wheat fields. The stress hits, and exits!" The corners of his eyes crinkle into a smile.

"Sounds so perfect," gushes Uma, " How right you are about everything, but I…don't have a choice, Manoj. I can't afford to buy any kind of property at least for another year, maybe more. And I'll die before asking my parents. The biggest problem is, I grew up knowing I would work, and earn and achieve. I can't let go of that. Even on Sundays, when I should actually be welcoming the respite, I'm all tensed up by evening. And on Monday mornings, people tell me I should walk around with a sign saying, 'Highly Inflammable. Keep distance'. Maybe I'm doing it all wrong, but this is life as I know it".

Manoj says, "Uma, relax. As I said, you don't need to give it all up. That's one of the many wonderful things Ayurveda has taught me. You can run your rat race, and still dance at the end of the day. The trick is ridiculously simple: just tweak the little settings of your engine, learn how to fine tune it. I'm so good at it now that I know if I get back into the grind, I won't burn out, I'll shine." He pauses, watching the admiration in her eyes. "Let me show you a very simple way to feel better right here, right now."

"Um-hm?"

"Sit up straight," he says. "Fold your palms lightly in your lap, and take a deep breath. Through your nose. "

Both Uma and I inhale, drawing in as much oxygen as we can.

Manoj exhales, slowly, through the mouth, and we do the same.

"Repeat," he says. "Deep, and slow."

After just five repetitions, we feel incredibly fine, alive, alert.

"Now each time you inhale, say to yourself, "Hello, positive energy, breeze right in."

"And each time you exhale, say 'Goodbye, stress; adios, sadness."

The exercise takes us two minutes. At the end of it, Uma says, "It's amazing. I can feel a strange sense of well-being right here, deep inside." She touches her belly.

Manoj nods. "Exactly. I asked you do try this exercise because I noticed you were sighing from time to time. You might think it's because you're sad, but no. It's simply the body's way of forcing more oxygen into your lungs. When you are tired or under stress, you take shallow breaths and fall short of oxygen. In Ayurvedic language, we say you need more 'prana', or 'life-force'. Deep breathing gives you prana. See what I mean? You can do this anytime, anywhere. All it takes is a few minutes, and everybody has a few minutes. Even you! Try it and after a few weeks, you'll notice that you aren't sighing any more!"

"Now I can see why you brought me here," says Uma, turning to me. "I've absolutely never met anyone like this man." "If only," she adds wistfully, "I could spend some time here and learn a few of your Ayurveda tricks…"

"Oh you're always welcome," says Manoj, breezily. "But why wait until next time? Let's go meet vaidyaji right now!"
*