Mallakhamb was first demonstrated internationally at the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936, when the Indian team received special medals from Hitler after he took an interest in the sport. But as a vocation, it goes far back in time.

Battles over yoga’s biography have unintended consequences.

Despite Uttarakhand’s ambitious tourism policy, unemployed yoga teachers have been agitating for job security in the state since at least 2006.

To make yoga a sport, seven of the eight classically interpreted limbs were amputated, leaving behind only the postural component (asana).

Yoga’s entanglement with a trans-national obsession with lighter skin is more widespread than believed.

Typically, promoters of a monolithic, ahistorical, essentialised idea of yoga are ignorant of the actual daily life of the early Vedic culture.

While for some, Sanskrit might be considered a dead language or a symbol of millennia of oppression, for others it is a treasure trove of untapped knowledge that might just save humanity.

The challenges of tackling climate change still remain mostly in the realm of politics and economic interests, rather than soft choices over culture and what to wear to a Yoga Day event.