“Empty your mind, clear the thoughts away,” said the yoga
instructor in her soothing voice.
I felt a comforting sense of calmness wash over me. No thoughts,
no white noise in the background to disturb me. It was just a void. A strange
sense of lightness overcame my being, strange in a happy sort of way.
As I inhaled deeply for a count of four, my stomach expanded.
I concentrated on the breath alone. Thoughts of that unfinished report were
pushed to a quiet corner of the mind. This was not the time for work to
suddenly show up like an unwelcome visitor.
Every morning before the crack of dawn, I attended the yoga
classes in my neighbourhood. It was still
dark and quiet everywhere. Even the stray dogs, deep in their slumber, would
not let out so much as a snore. It was this quietness that I enjoyed most
during the day.
All of a sudden, a sound was heard. It was something like a
cross between the melody arising from the plucking of a veena string, the purring of a cat and the striking of metal on a
gong.
The magical spell was broken. My concentration veered. Somebody
had forgotten to switch off their phone again, I thought in exasperation.
Soon enough, another metallic tang was heard coupled with a
few more tangs in quick succession. Unable to concentrate on the breath any
more, any longer, I opened my eyes. The other yoga students too were wondering looking
around trying to figure out the source of the sound.
When it was clear that it was not any of our phones that was
causing trouble, the instructor decided to take charge. She went out to enquire
with the watchman about the source of the sounds.
There was no other premise in the building open at this hour
in the vicinity. A music class in the offing perhaps? Nope, not that he knew
of.
“Not in any of the other floors of the building? Are you
sure,“ she asked. The building had five floors and the yoga studio was in the
ground floor.
“No madam, I don’t see any neon board hanging outside advertising
one,” he replied nonchalantly.
Now, all of us were scouting for the source, looking for light
glowing from a room or two from houses in the vicinity. May be some sleepless soul
had woken up at this hour and had switched on the radio for company.
“It can’t be a radio,” said one of the students in a magenta
tank top and black tights.
“It has to be an animal, sounds more like a kitten,” said another
man who had not got up from his lotus pose, the padmasana, like the rest of us.
The sounds were repeated, frequency between two consecutive sounds
maintained at the same pace.
They were emanating from somewhere inside the yoga
studio, we decided.
There at the corner of the room, behind the pot of money
plant, lay a small wooden box. The box was closed and lay motionless. There was
no doubt now, about the source of the mysterious sounds.
I slowly ventured towards the box on tiptoe as the class
collectively held its breath. I practiced some deep breathing to steady myself and
stretched out my hand slowly and lifted the cover.
As I looked inside, I found two little kittens huddled together,
lying on top of each other, purring loudly. Probably being a day or two old, they
were hardly able to open their eyes. The entire class was now peering at them
over my shoulders.
