This is as unlikely a bunch of aspiring yoga teachers as one can expect — even though Rolf Ziegler and Martin Leen, both from Ireland, Kisan Mazgaokar from Mumbai and Ram Sonawane from Pune have been trained under the Hardwar-based Patanjali Yog Samiti headed by ‘celebrity guru’ Baba Ramdev. What makes them stand apart from other serene and meditative health experts is that they are part of an exclusive club of 110 trainers who also happen to be inmates of Yerawada Central Prison.

On Wednesday, when these newly anointed yoga teachers chanted the oath to pass on their skills to fellow inmates and later to their brethren back home, it created history within the high walls of Yerawada, where Mahatma Gandhi signed the Poona pact with Dr B R Ambedkar this very day in 1932.

Called upshikshaks (assistant yoga teachers), these prisoners started training 45 days ago in seven forms of Pranayam — Bhastrika, Kapalbhati, Baahya, Anulom-Vilom, Bhramari, Udgeeth and Ujjayi — as well as other aasanas. While many began training as a good way to de-stress and improve their health, somewhere along the line they discovered a new confidence and passion. And now that they’ve pledged before their trainers from Patanjali that they will introduce the joys of yoga to all the remaining 3,363 inmates of Yerawada jail. In a few days they will be issued identity cards and certificates.

“I feel more energetic, more focused and determined to change my life and help other people,” said Ziegler, who discovered yoga for the first time in prison. Leen, who has been jailed for the last four years and had been practicing aasanas, added that Pranayam has helped him “expel bad energies and feel recharged”. Both Irishmen are serving life terms for drug trafficking.

... contd.