<b>Kishore Singh:</b> Yoga photo op: Those who got left out

Ever wondered where the thousands of people practising yoga on June 21 sprang from? How did they know where to arrive on their coordinated mats in their coordinated tracks, ready for a coordinated photo op? So, all right, associations were tasked with the job - but why didn't anyone think to ask us? Will Subramanian Swamy please enquire why we were marginalised?

I know there's no shortage of gurus -yoga or otherwise - in the country, all with their slots on TV, who put on a pretty display (though somebody ought to tell that Ramdev dude to switch to something more suitable than a dhoti, which seems to be in imminent danger of a wardrobe malfunction while performing pavanmuktasana. But what about me? No, no, I'm not in the baba business - perish the thought - but I do make a pretty good yoga theoretician. And I have the certificate to prove it - just ask my wife. In the years that she practised yoga, about which in a minute, hold your kapalbhati pranayama, there wasn't a day I didn't observe her critically and point out her mistakes. Such as when she told the family over breakfast, "I did 70 surya namaskaars today," and I corrected her: "No, darling, you mean seven." Strange why she served my fried eggs with their yolks burst.

I'm sure our prime minister does power yoga wherever he goes, but let me tell you the places my wife has practised hers - in an aircraft galley (because she was getting bored), a hotel coffee shop (because there was a queue to get in for breakfast; they gave us a table right away, though my wife protested about not being allowed to complete her ardha matsyendrasana, at a wedding (because, sshhh! she'd had too much to drink), in malls and gardens and pretty much any place she's happened by. So can anyone tell me why she wasn't invited but they got poor M Venkaiah Naidu, who doesn't know whether to breathe from his left nostril while standing on his right foot, or the other way round.

I think my daughter deserved a chance, too, for her persistence. Once a year, she decides to take up yoga and goes off to the stores to buy a pretty coloured mat - so far, we have ones that are pink, orange, green, powder blue, silver, even a rainbow coloured one with sequins - and matching outfits and shoes. She even does a little breathing practice before launching into a rigorous yoga routine supervised by her mother, and is so full of aches and pains that she has to lie in bed for the rest of the week. She goes to the gym, or for a run, once a year too, and the result is always the same. Therefore - and Arvind Kejriwalji will agree with the strategy - if she must choose a day, why not International Yoga Day?

My son, I know, is the least deserving of us all, what with his daily gymming, and protein supplements, and body toning - sorry, shaping - which are all Western ideas, while yoga is our Indian panacea for retrospective Western lifestyle diseases. But doesn't he deserve a chance for ghar wapsi? I rang Arnab Goswami's channel to tell him the nation wanted to know why the country's most deserving family had not been allowed a spot for yoga at Connaught Place - but, strange fellow, he wanted to know if I had a view on Rexit. As if I know what asana that is.