Stretch and Chortle: Yoga a Hoot to Behold

A Dose of Laughter in Bangalore's First Light

BANGALORE, India

In the grainy half-light just after 6 a.m., a few dozen men and women gather in a small park, greeting one another beneath a canopy of flowering trees. Ranging in age from 40 to 80, they clap, form a circle -- and unleash a gale of uproarious laughter.

"Ho ho. Ha ha ha. Ho ho," they guffaw, sides heaving and heads thrown back to the sky. "Ho ho. Ha ha ha. Ho ho."

Basava Raju, 68, retired state bank officer and certified "laughtologist," leads members of the Mini Forest Laughter Club in "lion laughter." "They are addicted," he said. "They don't like to miss even a single day."

A passing jogger doesn't give them a second glance, and why should he? They're the regulars from the Mini Forest Laughter Club, commencing their daily ritual of smiles, giggles, chortles and belly laughs that -- in combination with stretching and breathing exercises -- make up the quintessentially Indian discipline of "laughter yoga."

Named for the park where it meets 365 days a year, even during the drenching summer monsoon season, the Mini Forest Laughter Club is made up of middle-class retirees, homemakers and businessmen, among others. It is one of scores of such clubs in this chaotic, high-tech city where beggars and street urchins coexist with eminent scientists and newly minted zillionaires from the booming software and outsourcing industries.

Invented by a Bombay physician, Madan Kataria, in 1996, laughter yoga is predicated on the idea that "laughter for no reason" can promote spiritual well-being and health benefits, such as lowered blood pressure. The concept has given rise to laughter clubs in India and a number of other countries, including the United States, and inspired a 1999 documentary by celebrated Indian filmmaker Mira Nair (who also directed "Monsoon Wedding").

"Really, they are crazy," Basava Raju, a retired state bank officer who founded the Mini Forest club, said of his fellow laughter enthusiasts.

"They are addicted so much," added Raju, a fit-looking 68-year-old whose business card identifies him as a yoga therapist and "laughtologist." "They don't like to miss even a single day."

The morning session unfolds according to well-established ritual.

After the introductory bout of "executive laughter," the group warms up with more-traditional yogic routines. Led at first by K.R.L. Narayanan, a 59-year-old chemist in khakis and running shoes, they rub their abdomens in a circular motion while repeating "Om," the sacred Hindu mantra, then extend their tongues and pant like dogs.

Then the laughers step up the pace, running toward one another and slapping high-fives, clapping and marching in circles like soldiers in formation. "Go for the mobile jog!" commands Narayanan, urging the group into a gentle trot.

The laughing commences in earnest with a minute or two of "stretch laughter," which consists of laughing while miming the shooting of a bow and arrow toward the sky, followed by a cleansing burst of "blaster laughter."

"Breathe in -- blast with the laughter!" commands Raju, the ex-banker and resident laughtologist, prompting an explosion of loud guffaws.

During the 45-minute session, the group partakes of "ice cream laughter" (a low chuckle that is savored slowly), "coffee laughter" (performed while pretending to pour coffee) and "mobile laughter" (initiated by shouting, "Hello! Hello!" into an imaginary mobile phone). The hilarity is infectious, especially when the members parody a mirthful lion -- opening their mouths wide and wiggling their tongues -- in the exercise known as "lion laughter."

Some laughter exercises are more subtle. "Meditative smile, please," orders Madhav Pai, a 64-year-old retiree in hiking shorts and a Grand Canyon T-shirt. Interspersed with the laughter are various stretches as well as facial exercises to strengthen the eye muscles and tongue.

As the session winds down, it acquires more of a spiritual dimension. After directing the members to hold the left hand up and the right hand down, Raju tells them to "feel yourself like an antenna," with "cosmic energy" entering the body through the left hand and "negative energy" leaving through the right.

" Shanti, shanti ," he says, repeating the Hindi word for peace. "Observe the inner silence you have created."

The meeting ends with "appreciation laughter" -- members laugh while flashing each other the OK sign -- and "garland laughter," in which they garland one another with imaginary flowers.

It is not yet 7 a.m. As the participants prepare to go their separate ways, Nitya Murthy, 64, a homemaker married to a retired technology executive, attests to the healing power of laughter.

"I had a severe heart attack 12 years ago," she says. "I've been hospitalized five times. I've had two angioplasties." But now, thanks to the laughter club, she says, "I feel fit as a fiddle."

- John Lancaster, Washington Post Foreign Service

Oh, Kolkata!

In replacing the colonial names of several cities, India loses some of its spice.

CALCUTTA SEARS the senses. You can almost taste the poverty, the spices in the air, the breathless heat and the swirl of humanity. I once watched bodies being cremated on pyres along the banks of the Hughli River. Then I retired to the Grand Hotel for a splendid lunch. Wondrous, uninviting, unforgettable — the former capital of British India is all those things.

"There is only one city in India," Rudyard Kipling wrote in 1888 in "City of Dreadful Night." "Bombay is too green, too pretty, and too strugglesome; and Madras died ever so long ago. Let us take off our hats to Calcutta, the many-sided, the smoky, the magnificent, as we drive in over the Hughli Bridge in the dawn of a still February morning."

Kipling no doubt would be saddened to learn that Calcutta no longer exists. Nor does Madras or Bombay. The cities are now named, respectively, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai, reflecting India's nationalistic move over the last several years to toss out names bestowed by foreigners in favor of original names that predate colonialism. With Western newspapers now starting to use the official names for datelines, Calcutta, Madras and Bombay are headed, in name at least, for the historical scrap pile. The old names have been banished from The Times effective Monday.

Of course, the souls of the cities haven't changed, only the names. And after all, what's in a name? Actually, everything. A country's or a city's name is part of its people's culture and literature. To change the name is somehow to diminish the past, as though implying, "Forget what was. We are starting fresh." That was Pol Pot's intent in 1975 when he renamed Cambodia as Democratic Kampuchea, using a purer, less Westernized transliteration, and his murderous Khmer Rouge began a four-year reign of terror to wipe out all signs of modernity.

Changing place names has been relatively common in the post-colonial era, particularly in Africa; and, unlike in Cambodia, it has generally occurred without incident. Peking (a name originating with French missionaries 400 years ago, based on an older Mandarin pronunciation) became Beijing (which means "northern capital"). Rhodesia, named for the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes, became Zimbabwe. Dahomey turned into Benin. The Democratic Republic of the Congo became Zaire. Then, in 1997, to purge the legacy of dictactor Mobutu Sese Seko, new dictator Laurent Desire Kabila changed it back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In Upper Volta (named for a river), the country's leader, Thomas Sankara, created a new country with the stroke of a pen in 1984, naming it Burkina Faso (which translates as "democratic and republican land of upright men"). Fortunately, he did not fiddle with the capital's wonderfully mellifluous name, Ouagadougou (pronounced WAH-GAH-doo-goo). The change may have stirred nationalistic sentiments, but it didn't accomplish much else. The Burkinabes are as desperately poor as were the Voltarans.

Confusion is often one of the main products of changing the name of a country or a city. Every Western traveler has heard of Burma and its capital, Rangoon. But mention Myanmar (which Burma became in 1989) and its capital, Yangon, and you're apt to get a blank stare. The new names never seem as good a fit as the old ones. They don't conjure up images or bring to mind the words of Graham Greene, Joseph Conrad or Kipling. The dawn still comes up like thunder on the road to Mandalay, but somehow that dawn seemed more romantic and mysterious when the road ran through Burma instead of Myanmar.

In the late 1960s, during the Vietnam War, I lived in Saigon, which was then arguably the world's most famous dateline. The city was sensual, with an odd blend of danger and exotic intrigue, and for old Asian hands, just the word "Saigon" still stirs memories of canals and tree-shaded villas and wide French-built boulevards. (Not a single one of which carried the name of a Vietnamese person, place or event.)

"Saigon is very small and referred to proudly by the French as the Paris of the Orient," sniffed Noel Coward after a pre-World War II visit. "This, I need hardly say, is an overstatement." In 1976, a year after Saigon fell to communist troops, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City, honoring Vietnam's revolutionary leader. But the name never sounded right. It didn't roll off the tongue easily, and it didn't speak to the city's history or ambience. It was like renaming Boston "John F. Kennedy City." The name is so cumbersome it's become an acronym. To this day, many Vietnamese still refer to HCMC as Saigon, and, when Western newspapers mention Ho Chi Minh City, they are apt to give readers a parenthetical hand by adding, "formerly known as Saigon." Names change, but the past is not easily forgotten.

- David Lamb, Los Angeles Times

Letter from India: Service with a smile brightens India trains

NEW DELHI A few minutes after the Lucknow-bound express leaves Delhi, men in black suits, bow ties and baseball caps walk through the executive-class rail car, press their hands together in greeting, and - with theatrical politeness bordering on sycophancy - bow down to present every passenger with a red rose, wrapped in cellophane.

It is a gesture which leaves the passengers perplexed. No one can decide what to do with the flowers, most of which end up stuffed under the arm- rest.

The roses are the opening gambit in an all-out assault of hospitality on the first-class traveler. A few minutes later, individual thermos flasks are distributed at every seat, damp towels are offered to help wipe away the grime of the station, newspapers in Hindi and English appear, individual packets of cornflakes come on a tray with milk, snacks of potato-and- cashew cutlets follow, bananas are offered from a wicker basket, fresh fruit juice is poured.

Hardly half an hour passes and men in starched scarlet turbans arrive to serve tomato soup with Italian bread sticks, bringing more white towels - this time to lay across your lap so splashes of soup do not soil your business attire.

A sign informs travelers that the new cushioned seats have "ergonomically designed backs, allowing excellent comfort without getting tired even on long journeys."

This elite service is far removed from the experience of most of the 15 million people who use Indian trains every day, but the idiosyncratic Indian railroad minister, Lalu Prasad, is eager to give the top end of the train network a radical makeover to win back the loyalty of the business travelers.

The railroad system is losing its first-class passengers to the new low- cost airlines that are aggressively promoting travel on routes traditionally served by trains. Although these rich train travelers represent just a tiny proportion of the total daily traffic, the fares generated by the air-conditioned rail cars have traditionally been used to subsidize the tickets of the third-class passenger and the disappearance of this revenue is a blow.

Lalu, as he is known, has decided to fight back. The features of the Delhi- Lucknow Shatabdi express are soon to be replicated in other executive rail cars throughout the system.

Lalu recently announced "that the year 2006 shall be the year of passenger service with a smile" - causing wry amusement among veteran travelers, who are unaccustomed to much passenger service or smiling on the railroads.

He knows that he has a stiff battle ahead. Only a few months ago he made the mistake of returning by train from his constituency in Bihar, eastern India, and declared after the trip: "My God, it was hellish."

"The toilet was so dirty that I can still feel the stench. I did not have my dinner. It was so nauseating," he was quoted as saying by Indian newspapers. "I will take some action."

So far, the action taken has been primarily targeted at improving things for the elite travelers.

With 1.5 million employees, the Indian railroad network is so vast that it has its own ministry within the government and its own annual budget. In a budget speech given at the end of last month, Lalu reduced the cost of the air-conditioned seats by 18 percent, pledged that tickets would soon be available through the Internet for all major trains, stressed the need for a "beautification" of train stations and promised that "modern facilities," such as ATMs and cyber cafés, would be provided "at all major stations speedily." There would also be a computerized feedback analysis of cleanliness standards.

In a separate announcement, he asked managers to make sure that cockroaches were not allowed to thrive in first-class rail cars.

How swiftly these changes will be introduced is a matter for debate. In any case, this was a curiously non- populist gesture for a politician whose most notable other railroad innovation to date was to ban the sale of Western-brand fizzy drinks in order to promote the sale of locally made buttermilk and Mango Frootis, a popular Indian drink.

"There has been an attitudinal shift in the railways," said Chetan Ahya, an economist with Morgan Stanley. "They are trying to respond to market needs, but there is no denying the fact that the government of India is not able to invest in infrastructure in the way that China is."

Ahya recently co-wrote a report highlighting how dramatically Indian railroad investment has fallen behind that of China over the past 15 years. Between 1990 and 2004, the Chinese railroad network grew by 29 per cent with 16,608 kilometers, or 10,300 miles, of track laid, but the Indian system expanded by only 1 percent, or 633 kilometers.

"You can keep making these small changes, but that is not going to solve the massive infrastructure deficit which the country has," he said.

Lalu will have to keep working on the service with a smile theme if he is to seduce passengers away from the slick new air services.

The suspension ride on this Shatabdi express is positively bone-rattling and no amount of on-board cosseting can remove the lingering horror of the predawn Delhi railroad station, with its rats, and heaps of sleeping bodies shrouded in blankets, its rancid sewage smells and its relentless flow of passengers and hustling porters, with towers of suitcases balanced unconvincingly on their heads.

There are still elements of first- class train travel not conducive to total relaxation. Several armed bodyguards, traveling with provincial VIPs, doze over their guns at the back of the rail car, rising occasionally to parade their weapons down the aisle.

Toward the end of the journey - delayed by two hours because of "mist" - the waiter service slows down and trails off entirely. A badged supervisor in pinstripes arrives to holler at the attendants, who have locked themselves in a box-like cubicle in the corridor and are sleeping on the floor.

Glimpses of the general discomfort of old-style Indian rail travel flash past outside the icily air-conditioned rail car, where weary faces are visible, crowded together and pressed up against the barred windows of trains moving slowly in the other direction.

"This is very interesting," said Kalyan Ghosh, an Indian businessman now based in London, fingering his rose. "You can't imagine how awful it used to be - the stench, the filth."

But he was conscious of traveling in a tiny bubble of modernity: "Things in this compartment are fine, but they're not so good in the rest of the train." This was a mirror of broader changes in India, he said. "One carriage benefits; the rest don't."

- Amelia Gentleman, International Herald Tribune

Cultural clash marks India's boom time

India's new prosperity ripples across the social spectrum: Poor rural workers are drawn to the city, largely living in the shadows.

They leave their villages by bus, by cart, or on foot, and head to Hyderabad, the capital of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. An estimated 500,000 families eke out a living working construction and raising families. In the shadow of the high-rises that they build, they live in a sprawl of tents where the smells of pungent spices and milky tea fight with the stench of urine and exhaust.

PIC - SHIFTING HOME AND HEARTH: Many villagers are lured by the construction jobs of India's new growth, and entire families migrate from site to site, sometimes for years.

Day and night, the air thrums with the roar of traffic, the babble of voices, and the buzz of flies. Children play in dirt and brackish water, off the

radar of educational and welfare systems. Their parents haul dirt and cement, dig ditches, raise bamboo scaffolding, and, in the case of women, split stones with mallets.

Local and international groups are putting pressure on government and employers to implement a law to protect migrant day laborers. But, for now, these men and women remain the largely unnoticed underbelly of a boom that has made Hyderabad a center for information technology, pharmaceuticals, bio-technology and other high-profile industries.

PIC - BEYOND THE NEON: At night, villagers cross intersections to find rest in the darkened alleys behind the bright lights. Come morning, they will fill the intersections, vying with each other to work on a construction site and earn 40 to 100 Rupees ($0.90 to $2.25) a day.



- Lee Lawrence , for Christian Science Monitor