Yoga has a paradox.

I realized this in Sri Lanka, standing barefoot on hot sand, watching a beachfront Yoga class unfold like a slow-motion advertisement. Branded mats. Foreign instructors. Perfect postures against the sunrise.

It looked like peace but felt like theatre.

And that’s when it hit me: how far Yoga has traveled: geographically, and culturally.

From Himalayan caves to coastal resorts.
From ashrams to Instagram.
From silence to soundtracks.

And then I came home.

To Jamna Paar.
To my chachu.
To a park where he runs a Yoga club for men in banyans and women in old cotton sarees who begin their mornings with real breath on mats, with a water bottle, a folded towel, and a stubborn discipline.

“Chachu, let’s record your sessions,” I said once.
“Put it on Instagram. You’ll get followers. Maybe even paid classes.”
He smiled without pausing his stretch.
“Beta, bahut log sikha rahe hain. Mujhe kaun dekhega.”
Then he added,
“Aur screen pe sirf posture dikhta hai. Saans nahi.”

That line stayed.

Because this is the paradox.

India gave the world Yoga. And the world gave it back with better lighting, slicker branding, and zero memory of where it came from.

Today, Yoga is a $100 billion market. And yet, the mohallas and parks of India get none of that money, none of that scale. The world is learning Yoga with playlists. My chachu teaches it with silence.

Three truths explain this fracture.

First, familiarity breeds neglect. When you grow up surrounded by something, you stop seeing its value.
Second, India never built the delivery mechanism at scale. The platforms now exist but Indians hesitate to use them wisely. Because we have the wisdom, but not the ambition to productize.
Third, cultural authority shifted. A white voice teaching Surya Namaskar gains more traction than an Indian elder reciting from memory.

But the loss is commercial and philosophical.

Yoga wasn’t created for the camera. It was created for the nervous system. It was built in silence. Taught through presence. Transmitted through practice, not display.

Still, that doesn’t mean India must stay quiet.

We’ve done this before. With software. With pharma. With satellites.
We build knowledge and built infrastructure.

We need to do the same with Yoga.

Build more platforms that preserve depth. Certify without distortion. Translate without losing the soul.

So that someone like my chachu doesn’t have to choose between reverence and relevance.
So that a child in Jamna Paar grows up believing that her Dadaji’s breath-holding isn’t just nostalgia but also a global science.
So that India stops watching from the sidelines as others repackage what it protected for centuries.

This International Yoga Day, I won’t post a reel or a yoga picture.

I’ll remember chachu’s words -
“Yoga camera ke liye nahi. Camera band karke jeene ke liye hota hai.”

And maybe, finally, we’ll start building and using systems that breathe as deeply as the practice itself.