A confab with the encyclopedia of yoga!

In an exclusive conversation, The Pioneer connects with the world-famous Iyengar yoga family’s current-gen, Nimish Dayalu, who takes us through a yoga-tic journey, hailing from a family with the ancient yoga background

Shikha Duggal

Living is an art. Yoga enhances the quality of one’s life. Hence it is an art. It lifts up one’s thoughts and enables one to face life’s difficult situations happily and with equanimity,” said Geeta S. Iyengar the Yoga: Gem for Women.

Notwithstanding, she’s not with us anymore. Dr. Geeta S. Iyengar was the eldest daughter of B.K.S. Iyengar, who was one of the world’s leading authorities on yoga. It was our privilege to connect with the most famous Iyengar family’s current-gen, who is continuing his ancestor’s journey of yoga in his own contemporary way. Not to forget, just not in our own country but across the globe!

Nimish Dayalu is passionate about bringing positive change in people’s lives. A certified yoga teacher on a path of mind training, he has yoga in his DNA-his direct lineage is from the world-famous Iyengar yoga family as discussed above.

“I am a mix of both worlds — mom is from the northern part of the country and dad is from the south. What brought us together is that he’s an Iyenger Brahmin and his whole family until today embraces yoga as a way of life. That’s inculcated in me too. We used to have a well behind our house, over there I know of my grandparents doing Surya namaskar and Tulasi pooja there. Today’s kids play with the devices, I had a different eloquent experience of being amongst the best of yoga teachers.”

If we talk about his paternal uncle, Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar was born in Bellur. He overcame poverty and deadly childhood illnesses, to begin his study of yoga at the age of 15 with his brother-in-law and yoga guru, T. Krishnamacharya! This proved pivotal in Iyengar’s life when he was called upon to perform in a demonstration at Krishnamacharya’s yogashala. He performed with great success and for the next several years, continued to practice and study intensely. Did Nimish also have a reality check ever in his life? He responds, “Performing yoga is in itself a reality: I have a fancy apartment, a luxury car, and all the other opulence means but was I happy? I could see my happiness is wearing off too quickly than I can imagine! I started my journey of soul-seeking then in the mid-thirties ending up in the same yoga school where it all began for my family, up in the mountains.”

A landmark was the publication of Iyengar’s bestselling book Light on Yoga in 1966, describing over 200 asanas in unprecedented detail. Today, the same landmark has been touched by their family member Nimish who released Caveman’s Secret Sauce! Although, where did he derive the proposition from?

He enlightens us, “Have been to every part of the country, an extensive traveller. But yoga comes from my part of the country is what I believe! Key politicians including the current prime minister are promoting it. I was urging to know what are these biggies talking about on ‘inner peace’? Why were my grandparents waking up before the sunrise? They were under the influence of abject poverty, not kidding yet yoga kept them sane. Having said that, they were extremely well-versed in Indian ancient scriptures at the same time. They made good use of it. I can proudly say: they must not have had material wealth, but they had the wealth of intelligence. I was seeking for same, and wanted to go back to my roots. Very soon, I was a certified yoga pioneer too. And, one must visit our yogashala because it’s extremely therapeutic in nature.”

Iyengar Yoga became an institution with the 1975 founding of the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute, named in memory of BKS Iyengar’s wife. A further major step was the founding of the first of many institutes abroad, the Iyengar Yoga Institute in Maida Vale, London, in 1983! The old IYI building was replaced in 1994, and the new one was officially opened by Iyengar in person in 1997. Iyengar Yoga had however been taught in London before that, in evening classes run by the Inner London Education Authority starting in 1968. From the start, Iyengar personally assessed the quality of the teaching every year.

Nimish continued, “One thing led to the other — I was being invited by the biggest corporations as a yoga teacher. I wasn’t the run-of-the-mill yoga teacher! My heart was full of gratitude. I never aspired to do that, the universe manifested it. It wasn’t fallen upon chance. I found it! During the pandemic, I was on my way to a pilgrimage to a temple in Nepal for meditation. I do these solo treks, I call those my pilgrimages (he laughs out loud). My life changed again from doing gigs with the corporations, I started finding shelters in those temples for approximately eight days and ruminating. While there was fear outside in the world, I was deliberating. This was the beginning of the first chapter of my book!”

Unlike more experiential approaches where students are encouraged to independently find their way to the asanas by imitating the teacher, his book is precise, with misalignments and errors actively explained and corrected. It states the way Nimish Dayalu lives his life, goes on self-proclaimed pilgrimages, and how he himself learned yoga with the help of props including belts, blocks, and blankets. This Iyengar family never asked its followers to adopt any set of beliefs. They are described as trying to teach an embodied experience of concentration and unity of body, breath, mind, and soul, focusing on asana while teaching a method of accessing all the different aspects of yoga within their single limb!