Sitting cross–legged on the floor, a live pyramid

A hill station school with a Roman Catholic backing and an Anglo Indian syllabus , was a high class education for a middle class family.

We had individual desks at the class room, resin topped tables and benches with china crockery and spoons and fork for the refectory, coconut coir mattressed cots and stools for the dormitories.

So there never was a chance to sit on the ground, unless the teacher wanted to punish us with making us sit down, little realizing that they were making the student more aware, straight backed conscious, and more benefits we are beginning to realize now of that posture.

Coming home for holidays, the cultural difference for the duration could be noticeable with the English mixing with our mother tongue, and the geometric posture of “X”when I used to sit down, with the shoulders nearly touching the knees.

Our south Indian fore fathers inculcated this posture, right from the child hood realizing the importance of a straight back and supple legs, for the meditations that would follow later in life for an individual.

One of my class mates felt that if the women folks were taught to sit more in this posture the obstetrics difficulties would be so much less for the child bearer, she said.

In this modern world we are beginning to appreciate that the olden days folks of Egypt and South America had hit upon a mystery of the pyramid we do not know yet, and whose cosmic and physical actions we are yet to unfathom.

Our elders had eased this with a simple posture, and it depends on us to demystify that with the “alive pyramid” that we become in that pose.