Yoga is Fun – You Already Know How to Bend
- Madhukar Dama
- Sep 2
- 6 min read
Prologue
They say yoga is difficult.
They say it takes discipline, practice, and flexibility.
But look at you – bending for bosses, bowing for favours, folding for jobs, and twisting for money.
Why fear the yoga mat?
You’ve been a master of bending all your life.
---
10 Everyday Yogasanas You Already Do
1. Chakrasana (Wheel Pose) – That perfect backbend when your boss delays your promotion with a smile.
2. Dhanurasana (Bow Pose) – The posture of begging HR for a hike while they pat your back and say “next year.”
3. Ustrasana (Camel Pose) – Same curve you show when relatives ask, “Shaadi kab karoge?”
4. Matsyasana (Fish Pose) – Floating helplessly when landlord hikes rent but you thank him politely.
5. Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose) – The crawl you do at government offices chasing one stamp.
6. Setu Bandhasana (Bridge Pose) – How you suddenly become a bridge when a friend with “contacts” can help.
7. Kapotasana (Pigeon Pose) – The fold you show to get your child’s school admission cleared.
8. Halasana (Plough Pose) – That deadline-bending stretch you do at 11:59 pm.
9. Rajakapotasana (King Pigeon Pose) – The royal bend when buttering in-laws at family dinners.
10. Anantasana (Sleeping Vishnu Pose) – Lying sideways pretending peace after all-day bending for survival.
---
Epilogue
See?
You are already a yogi of survival.
Every favour, every signature, every salary slip has bent you into an asana.
Now stop doing it for society alone—
bend once for yourself, on a mat, and call it yoga.
At least then your back pain will be worth it.
Yoga is Fun – The Employee Who Bent for Everyone but Himself
Characters
Dr. Madhukar Dama – A physician, farmer, and thinker living off-grid near Yelmadagi, tending to his homestead and patients with simplicity and sharp insight.
Mr. Employee – A mid-level corporate worker in a stiff blue suit, overworked, overstretched, forever bending for bosses and clients but terrified of bending for himself.
---
Prologue: Arrival at the Homestead
It is 7 AM. The forest farm near Yelmadagi is alive with sounds of birds, buffaloes, and the whistle of a firewood stove.
Madhukar is barefoot, watering saplings. The soil is red, moist from monsoon.
Through the gate arrives Mr. Employee—suit pressed, tie choking, laptop bag heavy. He looks both out of place and exhausted.
---
The Fear of Yoga
Mr. Employee (panting):
Doctor, my back is finished. Stress, deadlines, pressure. My friends said you help people. But listen… yoga? Impossible. Too difficult. Too strange.
Dr. Madhukar (calm, smiling, handing him a chair):
Sit. Don’t worry, no one will force you into a headstand here.
Mr. Employee (collapsing):
Thank you. See, I bend all day in office. For the boss, for clients, for targets. That’s enough bending for one life. Don’t tell me to bend again.
Dr. Madhukar:
Ah. You bend freely for the boss but not for your spine. You bend for deadlines but not for your lungs. Curious, isn’t it?
---
The Joke of Survival
Mr. Employee (frowning):
That’s different. Office bending is survival. Yoga looks alien—people twisting like circus clowns.
Dr. Madhukar (plucking leaves into a basket):
Tell me, how many hours do you bend over a laptop every week?
Mr. Employee (sheepish):
Fifty. Maybe sixty.
Dr. Madhukar:
And how many hours does yoga demand?
Mr. Employee (hesitant):
Half an hour?
Dr. Madhukar:
So sixty hours of painful bending feels natural, but thirty minutes of healing bending feels alien. Do you hear the joke?
Mr. Employee (forced laugh, then wincing from pain):
When you put it like that… maybe. But office bending at least pays. Yoga doesn’t.
Dr. Madhukar (smiling sharply):
Really? Office bending pays with salary and back pain. Yoga pays with spine, sleep, digestion, peace. Which one is bankrupting you?
---
The Lie of Difficulty
Mr. Employee (muttering):
I still feel yoga is too difficult.
Dr. Madhukar (digging soil with a hoe):
Is bending to meet your boss at 10 PM easy? Is typing 200 useless emails easy? Is sitting in traffic easy? You still do it. Not because it’s easy, but because you were told it’s necessary.
Mr. Employee (silent, staring at red soil):
Yes.
Dr. Madhukar:
So who told you yoga is unnecessary?
Mr. Employee (confused):
Maybe society. Maybe me.
Dr. Madhukar:
Exactly. Someone sold you the lie that bending for survival is noble, but bending for health is absurd.
---
The Break in the Armor
Mr. Employee (softer, almost childlike):
So I don’t have to stand on my head? Or twist like noodles?
Dr. Madhukar (laughs):
No. Just stand on your feet. Breathe. Bend slightly. Stretch arms. Yoga is not circus. It is honesty with your body.
Mr. Employee:
But I can’t touch my toes.
Dr. Madhukar:
Touching toes is easier than touching your boss’s ego.
Mr. Employee (laughs, this time real):
That’s… brutal, but fair.
---
The Realization
Dr. Madhukar:
Yoga is not alien. You already do it—every time you bend for someone else. The only difference is: on the mat, you bend for yourself. No boss. No client. Just you.
Mr. Employee (nodding slowly, tie loosened, laptop forgotten):
Maybe I can try.
Dr. Madhukar (handing him a leaf, pointing at the rising sun):
Start with breathing. Then a simple forward bend. Not for money. Not for the boss. For your back. For your life. Remember: yoga is not difficult. Fear is.
---
Epilogue: The Bend for Himself
The forest stirs. Sunlight slips through clouds.
Mr. Employee sits quietly, not yet on a yoga mat, but already bending—this time, in thought.
For the first time in years, bending does not feel like slavery. It feels like possibility.
---
bend, employee, bend
the office man bends,
always bends.
he bends for deadlines,
for the boss’s son’s wedding card,
for the printer that jams at 11:59,
for the tea boy who suddenly
outranks him
because he has gossip.
he bends for rent receipts,
bank loans,
marriage proposals
he doesn’t want,
school admissions
for a child
who never asked to be born.
his spine is a currency,
spent daily.
and yet,
say the word “yoga,”
and he stiffens like
a dried stick in the monsoon.
“too difficult,”
he says.
“too alien.
i’m not that kind of man.”
but he is that kind of man,
the man who folds
into forty shapes
of fear every single day.
he just doesn’t see it
because it is called
“career.”
—
at 7 in the morning
he comes,
suit sweating under
yelmadagi’s sky,
shoes caked in city dust,
eyes hollow
from spreadsheets and
powerpoint lies.
the farm dogs laugh,
the buffalo stares.
the doctor waits barefoot,
watering saplings
that don’t complain.
the office man wheezes,
complains about his back.
complains about his stress.
complains about yoga.
“i can’t do that circus,”
he mutters,
while his tie
strangles him politely.
the doctor doesn’t argue.
just listens,
like soil does,
like rain does.
then says softly:
“you bend anyway,
every day.
you bend for them,
why not once
for yourself?”
—
the office man doesn’t answer.
he remembers last week,
folded in two
over a broken photocopier,
begging it to spit out
a balance sheet.
he remembers last night,
hunched like a beggar
in front of his boss’s door,
waiting for a nod.
none of that felt alien.
none of that felt hard.
but to bend on a mat?
for his own lungs,
his own back,
his own sleep?
that felt impossible.
alien.
—
here’s the joke:
we worship suffering
if someone else
commands it.
we call it noble,
professional,
manly.
but the moment
we suffer for ourselves—
a stretch, a breath,
a bend that heals—
we call it stupid,
selfish,
foreign.
—
the farm doesn’t laugh.
the farm just waits.
the sun lifts itself
over the hills
without asking permission.
the doctor hands him
a green leaf,
still dripping with dew,
like a contract
without fine print.
“start here,” he says.
“fear is heavier
than your body.
drop the fear.
then bend.”
—
and the office man
finally loosens his tie.
for once,
his spine doesn’t bow
to a boss,
a file,
a fake deadline.
he bends,
clumsy,
stiff,
awkward—
but real.
and the farm
accepts him
the way the office never did.
