KOTTAYAM: At 69, M.R. Gopalakrishnan, a retired higher secondary school teacher, also trains his students in Yoga. He is a member of the faculty for yoga at the Yoga and Naturopathic Centre at the MG University associated with the department of Gandhian studies for 11 years. Besides the University students, his disciples here include doctors, lawyers and business people. The former Malayalam teacher at the Government Higher Secondary School, Karapuzha, was a yoga aficionado from childhood.
His grandfather Raman Nair was the disciple of Chattambi Swamikal, and he got attracted to it watching him practice. Later he took up learning yoga and secured a doctorate on 'the power of Yoga'. Mr Gopalakrishnan vouches for its efficacy from his personal experience in fighting chikungunya that infected him a few years ago.
"I was able to limit its damages in my body. My hands got twisted under the impact of the illness, and I was able to prevent worsening it," he told DC. He shows his fingers, some of them bent inwards from the disease. He also found it difficult to bend his legs after that. However, he claims he could minimise the pain, thanks to yoga.
