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Chris: Geetaji, I would like you to tell us about your formation and development as a yoga teacher. What do you remember from the very beginning, when you were a child, about watching Guruji practice or your thoughts about yoga at that young age?
Geeta: How to say this! You see, it was not that I was completely interested in it or that I was disinterested. I was not a person who never thought of yoga because it was in the family, it was going on. I was seeing it so there were no thoughts against it. And it was only me who was interested in it in the family. I don't think my brother and sisters were interested in it in the manner I was. But, I won't say that I was totally given to it. However, whenever time was there or I felt like doing, I used to do. I was practising in a playful manner but that was not the age to be serious. When you speak of interest, you think of being serious. But if you mean a light interest, then I was always interested. As a child I would watch my parents when they were doing yoga and obviously I had that interest. But if you ask me whether I was sincere, I would say "No" because I was not intelligent enough at that age to be sincere. At that age I was interested in playing with friends and being outside and going to the parks. But at the same time I was never parted from yoga, only the intensity was less until I grew the seed of insight. So I was never completely out of it. It was always around me. I remember very well how I used to imitate Guruji while he was practising. Guruji used to make me bend and twist and make me topsy-turvy on his feet when he did headstand and shoulder-stand.
Chris: When did you become aware of the fact that your father was so special and how dedicated he was to his work?
Geeta: As a child, when I started understanding life outside, I knew that he was different. Even though he did not have that much name or fame yet, people used to approach him. In 1951 he was teaching Jaya Prakash Narayan and other Indian politicians. Then he taught Krishnamurti. Though I didn't know these people, I knew that they were important people. They were coming, Guruji was teaching them and sometimes he would tell us that he was going to teach them. So we knew that he was doing something special. People were coming and asking for him and seeking his advice, so we all knew he had some special knowledge.
Chris: In, Yoga - A Gem for Women, Guruji wrote in the foreword that although you watched him and you saw him teaching, you didn't really show any inclination toward yoga until your illness when he gave you an ultimatum. Did you practice before that except in playing?
Geeta: I don't think I didn't show any inclination. Maybe Guruji remembers it that way. But I was doing yoga from the age of three or four and even before having nephritis I used to do yoga. I was always a sick child, having cold or cough or fever. Though I used to take part in competitions like jump rope, I had little strength. I was weak constitutionally. Before the nephritis, I played a lot doing yoga. I was never lazy but I had many illnesses which were never diagnosed properly. This went on for two years without knowing what the main cause of these illnesses was. My breathing was affected and at night I used to wheeze and get breathless. Later when I became unconscious with nephritis, they diagnosed that it was the cause of all these other illnesses, for all these years. I was already playing at yoga, and then I had to do it because there was no other choice. And I knew that when I did yoga, I felt better. Suddenly I became serious after this illness. But even now I feel I have a weakness and I have to limit myself.
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Interview done by Chris Saudek, December 1995. Transcribed by Chris Saudek, edited by Geeta Iyengar, Chris Saudek an Francie Ricks. The interview originally appeared in "Yogapushpanjali." Copyright © 1995 by Light on Yoga Research Trust, Mumbai. Reproduced with the permission of the Light on Yoga Research Trust.