Chennai: This U.S. based company “Hot Yoga!" recently held a lush grand opening of its newest subcontinental branch in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. However, the company has experienced a number of troubles during its opening week, the most challenging of them being that the instructors quickly realized that they would have to utilize air conditioners to cool the room down, rather than heat it up, to the standard 105 degrees.
“Since none of us have actually been to India, we had no idea that Madras was this hellishly hot in the summer!” stated instructor Nalin Kripaya Shruti Vashtidevan Mahanagar Stahlhamdske, a recent Swedish convert to Hinduism, dressed in a 5 foot high silver turban which is typical of his Falkenberg-based sect. “We had to install air conditioners to cool the classrooms down to regulation temperature.”
There has been some past controversy over “Hot Yoga!” use of heated yoga rooms, as there have been a large number of reports of fainting spells, dehydration, episodes of delirium, panic attacks, blood pressure attacks, uncontrollable bowel and urinary movements, and flatulence clouds, which are an aggregation of participant’s bodily gasses that cannot dissipate because of the humidity of the room, and hang over the participant’s heads, even causing the slow suffocation of a few practitioners in a recent incident in a Los Angeles studio.
However, when Hot Yoga! offered free introductory classes this week, it seemed that the controversy was irrelevant to sweaty local ears, as the rooms were flooded with railway employees, street vendors, construction workers, roly-poly middle-class women who were apparently unfettered by the divisions of caste, and one traveling yogi who came begging for food.
“We were so happy to be graced with such a holy presence on our first day,” said Stalhamdske about the sadhu, “We found him some food, and invited him to participate in the class. He just lay there on the mat for hours and everyone else in their Vedic wisdom seemed to defer to him.”
Stalhamdske, though, found it challenging to instruct locals. “Indians are a very stubborn people,” he said sternly. “I tried to get them to understand the importance of yoga movement, and showed them some of the postures but, well, they just wouldn’t really get out of corpse pose. They seemed to want to do deep relaxation, and I heard some meditative snoring in the back. The only person I could get to follow along with anything was Mrs. Rao.”
“Ahahahahahaha!,” squealed Mrs. Rao, “It was so cool in the class! I loved to do the baby cobra pose next the AC! It is the only unit on our road!”
Due to the success of the initial classes, Hot Yoga! is now considering rebranding to AC Yoga, offering a place for locals to escape the extreme heat and relax in a comfortable 105 degrees. Their new logo will be Lord Ganesha frozen in sun salutation position inside an ice cube.
