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Malindi, Kenya
In 1967, Tanzania’s socialist rulers seized all my parents’ property — their ranchland, their home and their cattle — and overnight my father saw the fruits of all his labor taken from him. He had no time to dwell on his misfortune, since he had a wife and four children to support, so at the age of sixty he picked himself up and vanished off to work in Somalia.
My father’s last words were ‘yoga breathing’ and he died smiling
We went to live at a beach hut in Malindi, on the Kenya coast, which became our new home. Dad’s job involved long spells out in the wilderness with camels and cattle, but occasionally he had to visit Mogadishu and here he rented a room in a derelict Shirazi mansion overlooking the harbor. His housemates were young American Peace Corps volunteers who did yoga on the flat roof each dawn. At some point they persuaded Dad, this old colonial polo player, to join them — and he became hooked for the rest of his life. As a small boy in Malindi, when he was home I’d watch him going through his asanas, and when he finished we’d sit together and drink our tea, looking out at the Indian Ocean. Every single morning, wherever he was in the world, he did his yoga, alone but guided by Swami Vishnudevananda’s classic, The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga. Just before Dad turned ninety, he had a stroke in Malindi and an ambulance drove him to Mombasa hospital while my mother held his feet. His last words were “yoga breathing” and he died smiling.
During the recent Christmas holidays I found myself alone and divided from all the people I love, for reasons that were my fault. I headed for Malindi, the beach hut refuge which teems with memories from my childhood, of my parents, of my children growing up, of many good times. In the supermarket, crowds of women shoppers in burkhas were wishing each other happy Christmas as “Jingle Bells” played over the sound system, when I broke down in front of the halal meat counter and had no wish to buy anything other than instant noodles and a bag of rice, plus cigarettes, before heading back to the beach. Luckily a fisherman walked up from the ocean with a huge rock cod to sell me and I lived off that for weeks.
One day, while going through my parents’ library, I came upon Dad’s copy of Swami Vishnudevananda’s book. It was falling to pieces, but I sat down to read it. And all the black and white photos of this young Indian yogi in his Y-fronts, contorting his body into the asanas, took me back to the thing that must have helped my father recover from his own despair after losing his farm in Tanzania.
I had been given the number of Morris, a local yoga instructor, so I called him and said I wanted daily sessions. He began tutoring me on Christmas Eve and every day after that for some weeks. I guess he needed the work even when others were taking a rest because his father was in hospital receiving expensive treatment and in Kenya we have no welfare system. Each day he’d turn up and we did a session of yoga on the terrace overlooking the Indian Ocean in the exact spot where my father had done his exercises. I was hopeless, my limbs stiff, my fifty-nine-year-old body sclerotic from the long life of a foreign correspondent who spent his time in risky places, bars and airports. The advantage of having one-to-one sessions with Morris was that he’d walk over and with his huge hands he’d help me into the asana poses, as the sweat poured off my body in the tropical heat while my muscles and tendons shook with pain. Yoga became the focal point of my days because before and after the ninety-minute sessions all I wanted to do was read, swim or chain smoke. I was astonished how, after quite a short time, I seemed to be making progress in my yoga. I found such comfort while doing my sun salutations badly — Surya Namaskar — alongside Morris, and after the sessions he’d go off to see his dad in hospital.
On the final day he put me through the most punishing session and afterwards he said I had improved well. “Yoga philosophy does not quarrel with any religion or faith and can be practiced by anyone who is sincere and willing to search for the truth,” Swami Vishnudevananda wrote. “Even comparatively little effort will bring immense returns of knowledge, strength and peace.” The next day I drove upcountry, ready to face the year ahead.
