Islamabad: Belonging Matters

Building Community, Finding God and Teaching Yoga in Pakistan





Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
(Rumi)

I am a 36-year-old single American woman who lives in Islamabad, Pakistan. Like most of my girlfriends in DC, Sarajevo and here, my favorite TV show is Sex and the City. Although, I might replace their passion for fashion with learning languages; and for sex with yoga; I aspire to live my life using a similar model. A model where four accomplished, witty, beautiful kindred spirits meet weekly at brunch to discuss love, dress well and succeed in building meaningful careers—belonging matters.

When I moved here three years ago I assumed I could recreate this model in any city. However, there are many differences between life in Islamabad and life in DC for a 30-something-professional woman. For instance, in DC, I am one of umpteen thousand women that fit this type, we jog down rock creek park in sports bras, salsa dance at Havana village in heels, drink Margaritas at Lorial Plaza in shorts and play kickball in baggy primary colored t-shirts on the mall (true, I don’t wear shorts, but you get the point). The city is bursting with happy hours, clubs, movie theatres, yoga studios and dating games from which you can build your urban tribe.

In Pakistan, this isn’t the case. This whole segment of society is absent: working-urban-single-woman who live on their own and build temporary families with friends. Consequently, the whole supporting culture where this demographic usually spends 80% of its time and disposable income in is missing as well.

After 14 months of searching in the Margalla hills, Marriott hotel and Jinnah super market for the Pakistani version of Carrie Bradshaw I realized I was facing three insurmountable problems. First, there is no culture of brunch. Second, I only had one single female professionally accomplished friend who lived on her own, and she might have been the only one in the city. Third, as far as I could tell, no one seemed to be dating.

Forever, the optimist, I signed up for a self help course entitled “The Art of Living,” and hoped I could find Islamabad’s Miranda and Charlotte in the class. I figured I had Samantha’s role nailed down☺

Scene One: The Gun Club

Shahnaz Minallah dressed in all white, turns fifty this month, and exudes energy from her deep brown eyes. I tip toe into the aerobics room of the Islamabad Gun club, where Shahnaz is leading 30 Pakistanis, 2 Americans and one Croatian in the following icebreaker.

“Just dance!” she shouts, waving her hands over her head while the Bollywood classic “Meinay Jisko Chaha” booms through the speakers.

“Follow me in a circle, spin, let everything go, be happy right now.” She continues as I join the stream of Pakistani seekers and begin to smile and twirl. I take a deep breath, suppress my inhibitions, an art I perfected around the young age of 18, and laugh out loud as I moonwalk, shake, and shimmy my way around the room.

Most of the Pakistani women, and myself, are dressed in colorful Shalwar Kameez, the baggy Pakistani outfit that hides every curve and bump from the curious eyes of the men dancing nearby. In the 14 months I have lived in Islamabad, I have rarely seen dancing in public outside of a wedding. Here, in this course however, we Roger Rabbit and glide with abandon (read: NOT bump and grind). The only dancing around here is in the gated compounds of the Embassies or Pakistani homes, there are no 9:30 clubs. It’s a dry country, and speed dating, two stepping, and even yoga classes are…well…let’s just say uncommon.

The song ends. We all sigh a breath of relief and quickly revert to socially acceptable behavior.

Shahnaz, powerful, confident and full of light, begins to explain what we will do over the next week. “The Art of Living (AOL)” class is an introduction to yoga philosophy, stress management, and breath work.” Shahnaz begins to lay out how we will spend three hours each night for the next week. She invites us to live Vegetarian for a week, to give up coffee and gossip, and to commit to practicing the breathing exercises every day. She toggles between English and Urdu as she confidently strides into murky water daring to explain to a group of Muslims why we will be chanting Om throughout the week.

Most Pakistani Muslims have an allergy to the word Om that is hard to describe.
Their response to Om comes from a place I struggle to understand, and I am awed and amazed at how Shahnaz introduces it, and soothes their fears. Before my very eyes, she succeeds daily in persuading a room of skeptical Pakistanis to join their voices in raising three Oms before we breathe together every day for the rest of the week.

I realize I have landed somewhere extraordinary, sure it is odd to do yoga in a gun club, and stranger to do dancing ice breakers in Pakistan, but my instincts tell me that if she can get this room to chant Oooommmm, I might have found my people.

Scene Two: 108 Sun Salutations

Islamabad functions on text message; no one is using E-vite, landlines, or even old school e-mail to gather kindred spirits together. I have not given up on finding my urban posse in this Art of Living group, there are bound to be a few kindred spirits who are interested in transitioning from this introductory yoga class into a weekly support group, right?

I never did AA, but I love the format, maybe it was all the years in Bible studies and book clubs. Maybe it’s why we there are writing and reading assignments for this weekend!

I totally know what it takes to move from an interesting introductory course in yoga, meditation and breathing, to a sustained daily practice. If I am good at anything in this life, it is this. I send out a message to the entire class, and everyone else I have ever met in Islamabad, and invite them to join me twice a week in cultivating a regular yoga and meditation practice.

The text reads in Urdu “Cultivate a weekly yoga and meditation practice, all are welcome, please forward to spouses and friends, weak in spirit best not attend. Wednesday’s and Sunday’s 6:00 pm. Class followed by soup.”

It’s not easy, actually, finding kindred spirits in the world--this has nothing to do with Pakistan, this is the human condition.

Fifteen of us meet on the first Wednesday night in my house. I have always been a firm believer in creating a shared practice space rather than setting up a formal teacher student relationship. Truth is, I don’t like to teach and I am not very good at it. But, I can show up, twice a week, or every day, and facilitate a growing, deepening shared practice.

I have three rules at my house:

1) No English or Pashto allowed, only Urdu. (This means non-Urdu speaking foreigners are not welcome. I’m militant about this; it’s my only all-Urdu space. One student observes this and affectionately calls me “General Sahiba!”)

2) No cell phones. The energy of interruptions and multi-tasking they bring is unbearable. I ask the student to leave the phones outside. My home is a cell free zone, except of course during the weeks when I’m flirting with someone and have to run upstairs to see if I received any texts. (I know. I know.)

3) No work talk. Not a peep. Work takes over so much of our lives here.

Ornery, grudgingly, and resistant--they mostly consent.

This group ebbs and flows; grows and shrinks over the next two years. Over time, we migrate from doing just Iyengar to Ashtanga Yoga, we move from the AOL taught pranayama to Iyengar style, and finally we all start meditating on wooden stools.

One of my first surprises, is when Saira, a 33 year old Pakistani schoolteacher started to come to class with her mother. Saira is confident, buff, and interested in losing weight. She reminded me of every other adult single woman I had met in my life. Except, that she always came with her mother.

I didn’t get this or understand for the first few weeks. Her mom, was not interested in learning yoga, actually, she would sit for each 2 to 3 hour session in my sitting room, a conservatively dressed woman, and recite her prayers, using beads. (Picture a rosary in her right hand and a woman reciting the names of Allah).

Finally, it dawned on me, the reason she was here, mom that is, was because it was a mixed group, and Saira wasn’t allowed in the presence of non-relative males. There is a term for this. Na-Mehram. This strikes at the heart of our cultural differences. Saira had to be accompanied everywhere by her mother or a male relative when she had the possibility of interacting with un-related men.

“Why?” I asked my Pakistani friends.

This was normal to them, and I felt like I was watching a Star Trek movie, I absolutely didn’t get it. Saira would be married soon, in an arranged marriage, and her parents needed to be able to convincingly vouge for her honor.

(What if my parents had the same task? Who would Roger and Karin pick? Brent, as the only brother, would also have a say? I thought about this a lot, and my Pakistani friends liked to remind me that the divorce rates in Pakistan are lower than in the U.S…alas, this is a different essay, but considering first cousins are eligible as well, had I been born Pakistani, I would probably be married to cousin Justin.)

Each of us understood and exercised yoga as a spiritual practice. No one thought of it as just exercise, with their Sufi mystic cultural background, and this self-selecting group of Open Pakistanis to certain things “Indian.” We all opened our yoga sessions with an Om, that was a prayer, a prayer to God that we had different names for, perhaps, but not the slightest bit of tension or disagreement. This Christian and those Muslims were practicing yoga to deepen, strengthen, and sustain our connection with God--individually and collectively. It was church. And certain nights, with the sun was setting as we were moving through our practice, we would break to pray together—Muslim style.

Muslims approach prayer differently than we Evangelicals. I had so much to learn from their devotion, their approach to prayer, which felt to me like a sacred pause to savor the divine. In their world, prayer is physical—it looks similar to a sun salutation. They pray, well, some of them pray five times a day, every day, and the timings of the prayer go with the rising and setting of the sun. It’s not spontaneous popcorn prayer that we prayed at Vespers and Track House Bible Studies☺. There are a number of strict rituals, disciplines that go with the motions. First, they take ablutions, ritual purifications to prepare themselves to enter the presence of God, and recite a specific prayer.

I first learned to pray in a home stay with an Indian Muslim family, I always wanted to take short cuts. Did it really matter if I cleansed my nostrils before or after my forearms? I didn’t think so.

They always covered their heads; and I never got used to this. First, for years, as I tried, the veil fell off, slouched down on to my shoulders, defeating its said purpose. As in Bosnia, it shocked me every time to look at my dear friends: Kiran, Natalya, Mauna, Romana, and Faulak wrapped up like the images I associated with the “Not without my daughter” novel set in Iran.

How could my kick ass, smart, Pakistani girlfriends; this sex and the city crowd; lawyers, feminist professors, journalists, and entrepreneurs cover their heads like this. Somehow they didn’t suddenly become repressed submissive women when they wrapped up. I could agree to comply with this ritual, because on some level, it offended them, just a bit I think, if I didn’t cover my head. Instead, I wore an Obama hat I picked up in the states--a blue baseball cap, with white letters, outlined in red.

This meant that I was complying with the requirement to cover my head and, proved to be more practical, as it didn’t fall off as I folded forward, kneeled, and prostrated myself. I loved this time, pausing together for prayer, all lined up shoulder-to-shoulder, veiled and capped; we begin with inwardly stating our intention, or Niyat as it’s called. They believe your actions are judged by your intentions. For instance, if you had the intention to do a good deed or pray, but were prevented for some reason, you still get the reward. I have grown to share a deep appreciation for the power of intention with these friends.

In my heart, I think I am a monk; I love the monastic life, and knew, each minute of each day in Pakistan that this was a tremendous honor. An honor to have this intimate circle of Sex and the City friends, fine we weren’t shopping, and no one was dating, but communal prayer and a shared yoga practice may have served the same purpose.

As seamlessly as I entered their rituals, they participated in mine, listened to my stories, my hopes for our group and we continued to journey together. One of my favorite rituals was to spend an evening doing 108 sun salutations. We did these sun salutations Sivananda style, unless one of us was feeling particularly strong, and then did the “Updog Chataranga Ashtanga” version. Always hoping to use more Urdu, I would start the count with an “Eik” and after completing one, the next person, would say “two” and so on down the line. Moving in synchronized motions, and entering a trance around number 20, we moved through 108 Sun Salutations, almost like Whirling Dervishes. Turning towards God, we collectively raised our individual and collective inner vibrations.

Along the way, we would spontaneously recite poetry, Kabir, Rumi, Hafiz and continue through the 80s and 90s, until we reached magic number 107. Sometimes, one would just say, out loud, to God, to the group, to oneself, “107, I love you.” And we finished with the 108th.

I remember one night in particular, March 3, 2009 where a few of us met in my living room for the ritual of 108 sun salutations. This was the 20th anniversary of my born again spiritual birthday. Before we started, we sat on the floor, and I tried to explain what happened to me 20 years ago, to try to tell my testimony, to a group of my closest friends, who had never been in a church, never prayed to Jesus, and had never heard a Christian testimony. They wanted to be there, to hold the space with me to help me mark this moment.


Scene Three: My Front Yard

“Allahu Akbar….Allaaaaahu Akkkkbar…” the call to prayer sounds, I wake and get out of bed.

Its still dark in my front yard, the nearly full moon hangs brightly overhead, and one by one the yoga practitioners nod to the guard, and walk through the gate. The grilled door to my house is wide open; the guard turns off all of the spotlights. Each kindred spirit silently takes off their coat and socks, places their cell phone and car keys on the lawn furniture, and rolls out their mats. I light a candle that serves as the focal point for this small circle of Mysore Style Ashtanga practitioners and chant the opening prayer:

“Vande Gurunam, Charana aravinde, Sandarsita Sva Atma Sukha Avabodhe…Om Om, Om Peace Peace Peace.”

Palms in front of the heart center, we say the Oms together, and on an exhale, as though it was choreographed, we each extend our arms along the side of our bodies, first down to the earth, towards the wet grass underneath our mats where we ground the balls of our foot and bring life to each finger.

I feels like I just got taller, and each finger became longer. Taking my attention towards the inhale, we turn our palms face up and reach for the dark sky. By the time each person’s hands come together overhead, I can feel the strength, the power, the collective energy, of our shared practice. Hands raised overhead in urdhva namaskarasana, the moon just beyond the tip of each yogis aligned fingers, we exhale at different times, and fold forward into uttanasana. From this point on, we each move through the first 25 postures of the primary series at our own pace. The beauty of the Mysore practice is that it’s self-guided and self-directed.
Manysha, a Nepali journalist, working in Pakistan to train journalists from the tribal area, finishes first, and leaves to take her two children to school.

Later this month, she will be in a large hotel in Peshawar, with her yoga mat, preparing to practice in the morning, when the crazies bomb her hotel, and she runs out, alive, cell phone in hand, glass in her skull. Her practice never recovers after this shock.

Zubair´s sounded Ujai breath is as consistent as a grandfather clock, I can almost see him turn on his energy locks as he holds ardo mukha svanasana for five focused breaths. His practice lasts the longest. This thin, bearded 35-year-old father of two leaves his home at 4:45 each morning to join our shared practice. Some days he brings a friend, and walks him through each posture, as I did with Zubair a few months ago to introduce him to the series.

Preparing to write this essay, I asked this dear friend, a devout Muslim, who prays faithfully five times a day, how his practice is going:

He wrote, “As far as my practice is concerned, I still continue some forms of yoga. I do the famous Sufi, Baha-ul-Haq Naqshband’s practice of regular deep breathing called "ZIKR." I concentrate on each of the 7 chakras, striking the word "ALLAH" on each of them for an hour. It gives me a deep feeling of connectedness to ALLAH and our Holy Prophet MUHAMMAD (Peace be upon Him). I love these practices.”

Umayr, another thin young Pakistani Man, who works at the Canadian Embassy, completes a few sun salutations, and steps out of the circle. At the first sign of light, he turns this mat towards Mecca, and begins his Fajr prayers. The similarities between Islamic prayer and Sun Salutations are profound. He recites the Quran in Arabic as he glides devotionally through the movements. He begins this prayer with his hands in front of his chest as they were a moment ago. This time one hand is place flat against his chest, with the other hand on over top and his head bowed.

This month, he immigrates to Canada to start a new life and further his education.

The moonsets the sky fills with light. The birds come out to chant their morning invocations as we complete the primary series. We each leave silently, one by one, having shared the most important part of our day and noticeably, having not shared a word.

Manysha goes to take her kids to school, Umair to give Canadian Visas, Zubair to keep the cell phones working, and I prepare to go to the ATV station, to teach yoga on the Mornings with Farah Show.


Scene Four: Mornings with Farah

8:00 A.M.

“I heard you teach yoga in your home in Urdu to a group of Pakistanis.”

“Ahh, yes I do. Are you interested in learning Ashtanga?” I wonder how a random woman got my cell phone number and knows about the yoga classes I teach.

“Actually, I host the Mornings with Farah show on ATV, and I would like to send a crew to your house to film your class and then have you on the show as a guest.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Farah. Let me check with the Embassy, see if I can get permission, and get back to you.” How hilarious, I think to myself: What if I end up teaching yoga on a live TV show in Urdu?

A few months later, there I am, sitting cross-legged on my yoga mat in the studio, hoping and praying my Urdu will be intelligible, wondering if I should teach meditation or Sun salutations, and triple checking that my shirt is long enough to cover my lower back when I bend forward.

The Mornings with Farah show is broadcast into about 25 million homes on the government TV channel. It’s the morning show people watch that don’t have cable, the ones who can’t afford the Nadia Khan show. Like most morning talk shows that have a news segment, cooking segment, and daily guests, the target audience for Mornings with Farah is women who stay at home. There are a lot of these in Pakistan.

As I contemplate if I should actually try and teach some nameless, faceless, Multani homebound woman how to correctly move through a sun salutation, or focus on how to teach her to breath properly, I decide to envision someone I know who is watching, my friend Ammara’s mother. I try to imagine what she might be ready to try.

As you can see from the You Tube clips, I tried multiple formats. Sometimes I took calls from at home viewers, “Will yoga make me taller? Will yoga reduce my varicose veins?” they asked. I just hoped and prayed I could understand the questions, and figured the answer would come from the experience I gained over the past 10 years cultivating a daily yoga and meditation practice.

The most useful feedback came from the children of my Urdu teacher. “Dad,” they said, “You really need to give Amy an Islamic touch.” Naseem and I discussed just what this meant. It turns out that opening a yoga segment on Pakistani TV with the mantra “Om” is not so effective.

Many Pakistanis in the target audience for this show have an allergic reaction to this term, so we replaced “Om” with the first three sounds in the Holy Quran. If you watch closely, you will see me start with the chant, Aliph, Laam, Miim. These sound vibrations are a prayer, that brings the Quran, brings God, back into the center of our minds for a moment before we begin.

The ladies on the show who did my makeup were most worried about my feet. When I walked from the changing room to the studio barefoot, my feet turned a faint shade of black. And as they sat in the dressing room, watching the segment, their concern was never my posture, the teaching, or even my Urdu. They were tuned into how I looked. Was my shirt ironed, were my feet black? Being on TV was new to me, and it really showed.

Over the months that I did the show, I kept wondering is there anyone out there who is actually learning the postures, sitting up straight, breathing correctly with movement. On my last trip to Karachi, I was waiting for my bag to come through the security check. The man who looked carefully at the screen, checking the contents, looked up and said, “Hey, aren’t you the yoga lady?” Thrilled that this just might be the guy, I asked enthusiastically, “Yes, I am. Are you doing the postures, learning to mediate?”

“Of course not,” he said, “it’s just fun to watch.”

Yikes!

This is not what I had in mind. Slightly discouraged, I went for coffee.

Much to my surprise, the young man who served it also said, “Excuse me, do you teach yoga on ATV?” “Yes, that’s me.” I said.

He then stood proud and tall in a yoga Tadasana, took a deep inhale, and sounded a perfect “Aliph, Laaaam, Miiim.” “My sister and I do it together each morning.”


Scene Five: After Work

6:30 p.m.

With a hefty sigh, I push the bombproof door open and enter the open air. Short of breath, I walk towards Post 1, past the Marines, and leave USAID--which looks like a prison. With the thick brick wall, covered in reams and reams of barbed wire behind me, I search through my bag for my phone, the car keys, and then, the car.

“Where did I park?” I ask myself, drawing a total blank. “Wait, did I even drive today? How DID I get to work and REALLY, does everyone in Islamabad drive a white Honda Civic, which one is mine?”
Racing home from the embassy, late for meditation class, I call Natalya.

“Piyari Shagird, Are you there yet? Can you tell everyone I just left and Ill be home in 20 minutes?”

“I am still stuck at the office, Ill be another hour,” she sighs.

“Oh, I am sorry to hear that. Come for the meditation then. I’ll call Kiran.”

Click.

“Hey Kiran, are you at my place?” I ask in my panicky office voice.

“Amy, don’t worry. We are all here, the room is set up, take your time.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I answer in Urdu.

I wonder why it is so hard for me to leave on time, to bring the peace of my morning yoga practice into my work day, and hold on to it, just long enough to meet my evening pranayama and meditation practices.

I race from the embassy to my gated home, weaving through checkpoints, manned by tall thin armed men who look bored. Passing the cricket field, where Islamabad’s women walk laps while talking on their cell phones, the sun sets beyond the Margalla hills.

My guard sees me tear around the corner on to 18th street and he opens the gate. He is closing the gate as I exit my car and turn to greet him. “Shukria Bhai,” I shout gratefully.

In a moment, I change out of my local uniform, the elegant colorful and socially acceptable Shalwar Kameez; pull on the same yoga outfit I’d wear in D.C. and walk into my sitting room to see 6 kindred spirits, quietly preparing for our evening gathering. One is in down dog, another in Savasana, two chat in Pashto on the side. In the kitchen, Anika, my helper, is finishing the pot of Broccoli soup and juicing carrots.

“Please go ahead and sit in a cross legged sitting position as we prepare to open class by setting our intentions connecting our voices with the sound of Om.” I say as I take my seat.

Falak sits in a chair, her knees too sore to sit on the floor. Safraz is still in his work clothes, with perfect posture already diving deeply into his inner silence. Mauna, radiating peace draws my energy down, to the floor, onto my folded grey Iyengar yoga mat.

“Take a deep inhale and exhale, allow your self to settle in, arrive here, on the cushion.” I offer. “Before we chant go ahead and set your intentions for this evening’s class.

“Apki niyat kiya hai?

“Why did you come? Why are you here just now, tonight?” I inquire.

“Aap aaj yahan kyun aayay hain?

I let the question percolate in my own mind. And the answer comes immediately. It is especially poignant tonight as I am leaving on an evening flight to Thailand after class. The armored embassy vehicle will be waiting in my driveway by the time our 30-minute silent meditation ends with the bell and we share our reflections on what happened inside.

(We aren’t allowed to drive our self to the airport, even for personal flights).

“Why AM I here?” I ask myself, when I should probably be packing.

The answer is simple. This is the most important thing in my life. There is nowhere, on the planet, I would rather be than quietly doing Analoma Viloma, Bastrika and Khapalabati with these kindred spirits.

Maintaining this practice, nurturing this community, showing up, every Wednesday and Sunday no matter what--this is my lifeline. And I know it.

I also know, with each breath, how extraordinary this group is. Safraz, the only student to join me in both the daily morning and the biweekly evening practices. Here in Pakistan, he is my unlikely dearest friend.

I meet God here, right here, in this inhale, in this exhale. I wouldn’t be here, meeting God, quieting my frenetic mind, tasting tangible peace and love if it wasn’t for Natalya, Mauna and Falak showing up as well, committed to their own practices, committed to this shared space.

I know why I am here, and I am acutely aware that this is a rare, priceless, moment in time. I have lived all over the world and it’s almost impossible to find each other, a group of kindred spirits, heading the same direction in the universe, heading inside, deepening their inner silence, and nourishing their soul connections.

It won’t last forever. Even the TV show had to end. I will leave. There will be a moment, when we will all look back, and remember this season, this season when somehow, against all odds, our lives were anchored to one another, to the breathe and to the Self.