Bend it like Guruji: Pattabhi Jois runs Mysore's largest, best-known, and most expensive yoga school

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It has to be the Bangalore-effect. For years, Mysore, once the capital of the Wodeyar dynasty that ruled over this part of Karnataka, was nothing more than a quaint little town with a history, a palace, and a large public garden once famous for its cascading water bodies and sculpted topiaries. Since 2002 (2003 say some), however, Mysore has acquired a differentiator of its own. With Bangalore becoming a name with which the world is familiar-familiar enough to use the word as a common noun, a verb, even an adjective-it is almost as if someone in the West sat down with an atlas and a telephone book to find out just what cities and towns close to India's software hub have going for them. Mysore is 140 km from Bangalore, two hours away by a fast train and it has yoga going for it. And how.

Some 12 new yoga schools such as Yoga India and Pranava Yoga Trust have sprouted on the Mysore landscape over the past two years; existing ones such as Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute and Mysore Mandala are doing brisk business; and by some estimates, the peak season (November to February) sees some 5,000 students, Indian and foreign (the ratio would typically be 1:5), arrive in town to learn yoga at any of its 50-odd schools. "There used to be no one here for 30, 40 years," says Pattabhi Jois (aka Guruji), a sprightly nonagenarian who runs Mysore's oldest, largest, and, arguably, most expensive yoga school, Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute. "It is only over the last two or three years that the craze has caught on."

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That's an opinion seconded by Shiva, the man to know for any visitor who wants something in Mysore. With his flowing beard and brightly-coloured saffron robe, the 40-something rickshaw-puller-turned-facilitator is a veritable lighthouse for foreigners who descend upon Mysore. He can find houses to let, rent out motorbikes (for a mere Rs 50-a-day) and bedrolls, point to the right schools, even act as a banker. And if there is a message in Shiva's rags-to-reasonable-riches story it is this: there is money to be made in Mysore's yoga economy.

Beyond Material Fulfilment

Irrespective of the cause for its recent popularity-the reasons could include, apart from a proximity to Bangalore, the very presence of Jois, widely considered the man to learn Ashtanga Yoga from, or simple word of mouth complemented by some smart internet advertising-there can be no denying the fact that Mysore is witnessing a small economic revolution, courtesy yoga.

Jois' Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute can accommodate around 60-70 students a batch and handle 2-3 batches a day. The students are instructed by Jois himself, and by his daughter Saraswati and grandson Sharath, who also serves as the school's coo and head of marketing rolled into one. The fees? An average of $650 or Rs 28,600 for a 12-week programme. That may seem steep; then, it's how much yoga-fiends would be willing to spend just to meet with Guruji, leave alone learn from him. "It is expensive to be in Mysore but not something I would miss," says Stacy Plaske, a 29-year-old yoga instructor from New York who has had three sessions of around a month each at the school and plans to return for an intensive three-month one. "It's about the spiritual fulfilment I get from being with my Guruji."

Then, there is the new-age appeal of the yoga routine: wake up at 5.00 a.m.; practice yoga; pray; eat healthy; and sleep early. "People to adopt yoga, not just to keep fit but to cleanse the mind," says Jayakumar Swami who runs the Pranava Yoga Trust and is building a new HQ to accommodate his burgeoning student-base, further proof that it's a mere hop, skip, and jump (or their equivalents in yoga) away from fitter bodies and cleaner minds to lighter wallets.

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One school, Mysore Mandala, actually offers the entire package, yoga, ayurveda, and Sanskrit, tabla and dance lessons for prices that start at Rs 7,000 for a 12-week programme. And the lure of the Mysore market has attracted yoga instructors like Bharat Shetty, who gave up a lucrative practice as a yoga instructor to several of Bangalore's best-known it firms, to move to the town and set up Yoga India.

The Yoga Sub-culture

People who come to India, and in turn, Mysore, for that yoga experience are probably as fanatical as those who come to India in search of cheap drugs. Which could explain why there isn't much of that commodity on offer in the town; there is some, but its consumption, as that of liquor, is driven by locals. If people are willing to spend good money on learning the nuances of yoga, it is because most (like Walter Hamilton, a former us navy officer) hope to become instructors themselves when they return home.

That money has led to the creation of a legion of support services. There's Naga Kumar, for one, a local, the town's own mystic masseur who teaches a combination of ayurveda, massage, and meditation. And there is Tina and Sanjeev Sasson, an Indian couple who have turned their home in Gokulam, Mysore's most happening borough ever since Guruji relocated his school here, into a café, apart from hosting classes (conducted by Tina) on Indian cooking. "Yoga is the thing to do in Mysore and we have built around it," says Tina. The Sassons plan to expand their services by moving into the service apartment space in the next few months. Till then, of course, house-hunting yoga students have Shiva.