I remember seeing my father doing yoga when I was six or seven years old. He would do Shirshasana Yoga against the wall. And we seven children used to watch him with fascination!

What makes yoga so infectious for me is that it fits well with me being a politician where action and calmness need to be balanced time and again.

With architecture as my background, which is a fusion between science and art, I see yoga as a fusion between body and mind, between science and spirituality.

Additionally, I had been a sports woman during my school and college days, making me respect my body. But as I grew up, I needed mental peace, especially after being active in politics.

It was in the 1990s that I was taught yoga by Ganesh Thapa, an engineer and a devout follower of Hare Rama Hare Krishna, while doing my Masters in Architecture at New Castle Upon Tyne in the United Kingdom.

From then on, I have never stopped doing yoga, be it in jail or jungle and at all junctions and junctures of my life! Till today I continue charging my body with yoga while charging my smart phone simultaneously early in the morning.

I being of an extroverted character, action-oriented person penchant for impatience, yoga has been a stabiliser, tranquiliser and toner. Yoga does not allow hurriedness, carelessness and narrowness in thinking.

Yoga is not only physical mental positions and postures, it is also a means of self-disciplining and self-cleansing, leading to ways of healthy eating, timely sleeping and generating positive vibration within.

On top of that, I am a conscious woman, and I am aware what yoga does to a woman! Having to perform multi-tasks, she needs to stay fit and go for a ‘prevention is better than cure’ mode. It helps a woman to have a sense of balance, flexibility in her life. And yoga can be practised inside and outside the room.

Similarly, it does not demand rigorous exercise. In simple terms, it seeks movement of all your parts with mindfulness, like oiling each cog of a machine, massaging each part of your brain through regular movement of your body.

Mensuration, pregnancy and menopause do not allow you to stop yoga, rather yoga helps in toning the body to face these special moments women face with special touch.

It is important to note that women have been told to hate, be ashamed of and at best ignore their body. Since the body is linked to mental health, shaming, naming and hating will have adverse effect on their mental health, too. Yoga gives dignity to their body; it gives calmness to mental health, thus balancing both body and mind, inculcating a holistic approach to life.

I am thankful to yoga because it helped me come out of my depression in the UK. It helped me cope with solitary confinement when I was put up in police custody during the anti-monarchy movements in the 1990s. It helped me in my transition from an activist’s life to underground life during the 10 years of the People’s War. Not only that, it helped me cope with the six months of ‘house arrest’ during the people’s war by my own party!

And today it is helping me to stay balanced, toned and spirited! I am an extrovert, energetic women. For me yoga is not only body balancing, it is mental toning and it induces you to be self-caring, free and inclusive. It is the best friend of a lone person. In couples, it increases the bonds between them when practised together. Not only that, it induces you to release oxygen in your surroundings unconsciously, making you green and environment-friendly.

People tell me I am so simple without any jewelry, make up and sophisticated dressings. I tell them I am most fashionable because I wear confidence with mental and physical balance, I walk with a sprint on my feet, I apply sparkle in my eyes and I wear a smile on my face. And my daily massaged head gives a shine to my hair. Hence, I ask my friends, what more to wear, what more to apply and what more to aspire? The answer to all these questions lies in doing yoga regularly.

As a past minister of tourism, I see lot of scope for yoga in Nepal. With its secular, inclusive and multiparty system, together with the Himalayan and mountainous terrain, Nepal is now beginning to tap eco-tourism with added the benefit of yoga.

I thank Swami Vivekananda for propagating yoga in the Western world, who has added value to yoga by making it universal.

Yoga has today moved beyond Hinduism to a secular way of life. From the Ashram and caves it has moved to the masses. It is amalgamating Eastern values with Western ones, making it an ever expanding phenomenon.

However, one must not overemphasise the physical exercises, least they get reduced to the commercialised health spa. Its spiritual journey must also not be emphasised to the level that it becomes a religious ritual.

With this in mind, yoga is today increasingly being accepted worldwide as a way of life, uniting body and mind, science and spirituality, human beings and nature, toning the world to make it more self-caring and sustainable.

No wonder the UN body has recognised it by making 21st June the International Day of Yoga.

Lastly, yoga is a Sanskrit word which means unifying. And unifying is an infectious word when it comes to spreading humanism!

Specially in the year 2022 when the theme for the International Day of Yoga has been chosen as ‘Yoga for Humanity’!

My father infected me into practising yoga. I in turn infected Baburam Bhattarai, my husband to practise yoga regularly. And today our grandson Yugeen is already imitating us!

A version of this article appears in the print on June 21, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.