The Trouble with Yoga
IT WAS A SUNNY WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON IN south College Station when I arrived for yoga class, like I had on any other Wednesday for the past three years. After battling the rush-hour drive-thru Starbucks line to squeeze into a parking spot, I hurried past a new boutique next door. The display window featured a Buddha statue next to a Native American headdress, a yoga mat, a dream catcher and a hammock. Mentally bookmarking that bizarre collection of Orientalist-leisure artifacts as something to investigate later, I walked into the studio.
As I made my way down the cheerful teal hallway I knew and loved, the owner of the studio stepped in.” Stunned, I explained that it was only a casual chat. It ended with us hugging, after all. Ashley and I saw each other almost every day, and so I’d thought it was safe to share with her how I knew the word. She had used in a pun on social media — “Namastay Together” — and so I opened up to her about how it felt to see and hear a word from India turned into a commercialized pun in the United States.
