Pooja started to laugh again. That girl looked so good when happy. ‘That is your advice?’

Pete chimed in. ‘Why agonize for forty-five minutes? Start trying only ten minutes earlier.’

Anu shook her head. ‘Works in a man’s world. For us, an hour of agony is ideal.’ Then she got up and stretched. ‘Shilpa Shetty would have shot her yoga videos here. It will be so nice to do yoga here than in that hot hell.’

‘Why don’t you?’ Pete asked, wiping his hands on his face towel.

‘Yeah! Why don’t I?’ The idea started to appeal more and more to Anu. ‘Will you both join me?’

‘I have never done yoga before,’ said Pete. ‘But I can try.’

‘I don’t know. If someone spots me stretching here in public, it will be quite humiliating,’ said Pooja. ‘Can we do it after dark?’

‘Sorry, Pooja. It has to be at this hour. When Vicky is at school, or else he will be climbing all over me like a monkey each time I hold a pose.’ Anu turned to Pete. ‘Pete, you wait here. I will change and bring two mats. Pooja, you are right. You will look dorky stretching with us in a gazebo. You run home and agonize over outfits.’

Pooja stood there looking doubtful. ‘How long will you do it?’

Anu shrugged. ‘Half hour max.’

The day had started to look good already! Yoga in a gazebo. How nice is that!

25

25

Pooja, despite her concern about peers, joined them with a mat. While Pete was pathetic, Pooja was very graceful and lithe, and Anu was somewhere in between. That was the first day. It was quite a herculean task to teach Pete Surya Namaskaras, but Anu was not one to give up.

Then it was Day two. Though she was dying to know the details of Pooja’s outing the previous day, that had to wait till after . They were going to meet at nine-thirty every morning for their ‘Gazebo Yoga’.

‘Let us start with Surya Namaskara again.’ Anu began.

‘I can’t remember the sequence of stretches,’ Pete sounded a little dejected.

‘Didn’t you Youtube it?’ Pooja sounded surprised.

‘Nope.’ Pete shrugged. ‘Why would I spend time on twice in a day? This will do.’

‘Let us do only four sets of Surya Namaskara.’ Anu suggested. ‘What do you say, Pooja?’

‘Perfect. I hate it when I have to go on and on and on a thousand times.’ Pooja rolled her eyes.

Anu taught Pete four postures and asked him to do only those. A proper guru would be horrified at that sort of teaching and maybe even curse Anu, but it worked for Pete. He touched his knees instead of toes, he mostly bent his neck backwards than his torso, but Anu smiled approvingly. Any kind of bending was better than no bending, right?