Delhi-NCR’s first novel coronavirus patient, 45-year-old Rohit Datta, jokes that the only yoga he…

Delhi-NCR’s first novel coronavirus patient, 45-year-old Rohit Datta, jokes that the only yoga he did in the pre-pandemic days was kapal bhati, a breathing technique, because someone told him that each expulsion of breath burnt one calorie. “So if I did 300, I’d be burning 300 calories and save time walking,” he says laughing. But when he found himself in hospital with the dreaded COVID-19, taunted by the media for having ‘infected’ others, he grappled with both the physical effects of the infection and the mental anguish of cruel words. “People started sending me all kinds of WhatsApp messages about cures,” he says; they ranged from eating an onion with salt to performing a havan. The only message that got him thinking was one from his mother, who suggested he do anulom-vilom pranayama.

In the isolation unit, Datta made a mental list of five breathing exercises he needed to do: om, anulom-vilom, kapal bhati, bhastrika, and kumbhaka. “The first time I tried, I couldn’t do any for even two seconds. I felt like an old man who had smoked through his life,” he says. But he persisted, doing them twice a day for seven days, gradually increasing the duration. “I didn’t have the strength for physical exercise,” says Datta, who runs a technical textile business in Rajasthan. He had just returned from a work trip to Europe when he was diagnosed positive. Today, a pranayama loyalist, Datta says he will be one for the rest of his life

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