SHOE HIM AWAY

Muntazar Al-Zaidi started off a great new way of protest: Hurl your shoes and make your statement. Ever since the George Bush shoe throwing incident, Al-Zaidi has become a hero among muslims and in the middle east. This trend is now fast catching up in India with the election fever running high.

India's home minister Chidambaram was the first to get a taste of journalists' ire when the reporter from Danik Jagran, Jarnail Singh, hurled his footwear at him. Congress leader Naveen Jindal also faced a boot thrown by a retired school teacher in Kurukshetra. Then, it caught up big time. The Indian prime minister while campaigning in Gujarat became the target of a soiled boot thrown by a student from the crowd. All the three politicians were from the congress party, and it appears that Congress party is literally facing the boot! BJP was also at the receiving end, when a drunk vagabond hurled a slipper at the Karnataka chief minister, Yediyurappa.

While "chappal garlands" are commonly used in effigies of political leaders to dishonour the person, these incidents suggest a more bolder in-your-face approach. With still about a good month's time before the elections get over we can be assured of many more shoe missiles. Narendra Modi is proposing a net barricade around his podium during his speeches. Clever thinking on a shoe-string budget, I would say.

Picture courtesy: rediff.com

PRANAYAMA AND EXTENSION OF LIFE

Ever seen a dying person? During the final moments, the breathing becomes difficult and the person will be gasping for breath; gasping for life- and finally the breathing stops and ultimately death occurs. According to yogasana, the prana is the life force which sustains breathing in all creatures. Prana can be considered as an invisible force which operates in the region between the nostrils and the lungs. There is a force which is present in this region which pulls air and pushes air which causes the action we call “breathing”.

The total amount of force or prana is fixed for humans- it is 777600000 breaths for a lifetime. At a normal breathing pace, we take about 100 years to exhaust this many breaths (1 breath = 1 inhalation + 1 exhalation). Lets have a look at the breakdown of the numbers involved. At a normal breathing pace, one breath (1 inhalation and 1 exhalation) would take 4 seconds. Therefore for a day of 86400 seconds, we respire 21600 times. 777600000 breaths would mean 36000 days- which is roughly 98.63 years. That's why in Indian philosophy and customs we say that a human life span is 100 years.

Pranayama (प्राणायाम) is the science of extension of the prana.The number of breaths is constant, at 777600000. No technique or medicine can increase it. Breathing involves puraka, recaka, and kumbhaka (read: inhalation, exhalation, retention). The normal breathing exercise involves inhalation, a pause (retention), exhalation, a pause, inhalation... and so on.

Normal respiration takes 4 seconds. If we elongate our breathing, or if we control our prana: lets say we take 6 seconds for one breath. Then we have the following math:

Respiration (inhalation + exhalation)	Time (4 seconds/breath)	Time (6 seconds/breath)
1	4 seconds	6 seconds
15	60 seconds	90 seconds
900	3600 seconds (1 hour)	5400 seconds (1 hour, 30 minutes)
21600	86400 seconds (1 day)	129600 seconds (1 day, 12 hours)
7884000	31536000 seconds (1 year)	47304000 seconds (1.5 years)
777600000 (maximum)	3110400000 seconds (36000 days or 98.63 years)	4665600000 seconds (54000 days or 147.95 years)

By just slowing our breathing pace by 33%, we are able to increase our life span by 1.5 times. If its 98.63 years at normal pace, we can live 147.95 years if we breathe once in 6 seconds, and we can live 197.26 years if we breathe once in 8 seconds. These are just the basics- some techniques like kumbhaka, or stopping of breath would mean that the force of prana is not used up for that time. If we stopped breathing for a minute (no inhalation or exhalation), we have effectively gained one minute in our life! Likewise, if we take shorter breaths, our lifespan is proportionally reduced. Its up to us to effectively use the 777600000 breaths available to us.

When we practice pranayama regularly, our breathing become regulated which has a cascading effect on the whole body functioning itself. Since everything starts from the breathing, and all our body cells require oxygen to survive, any alteration of the breathing would affect the whole body functioning. While pranayama serves to extend your life, it also has a host of other benefits. Regulated breathing via pranayama has been proven to provide better concentration, will power, sound judgment, mental stabilty, enhanced perception, not to mention a healthy, robust body free from ailment. This is a great science which was passed on to us by our forefathers- we should effectively make use of it, knowing what actually happens by pranayama instead of blindly "following" it.

A word of caution: Pranayama is a highly evolved science and advanced techniques should be practiced under the guidance of proper guru and not by blindly copying it off books or from the internet.