Short Story: Yogi By Syed Ali Akbar Rizvi

Syed Ali Akbar Rizvi’s short story is inspired by his own meditations and experiences in a Pakistani society where he has considered meditation as a practice in such a society in a humorous way. 

“I’m going to meditate,” said Musa Khan. 

He set a yoga mat on the floor, lit a couple of incense candles by his side, and took off his shirt to reveal a chest upon which an amulet swung freely over a bed of hair. Months ago, he’d stopped shaving his underarms. He put on deodorant every now and then, and that too upon the pleas of his sister, Palwasha, who couldn’t bear to sit next to him when he had his shirtless meditation sessions. He insisted on taking his shirt off when he meditated; so that he may allow air to pass through every nook and cranny of his five-foot-four body. Naturally a short man, he didn’t attract many people of the opposite sex and veiling his unattractiveness, he’d decided he was going to exterminate everything carnal from his existence through acts such as fasting and meditation. His sister knew why he’d taken on the garment of a yogi, which was, perhaps, no garment at all, it had been to cover up his lack of luck with the ladies–an entire attitude of life geared toward the annihilation of instinctual behavior, that Musa Khan had come to hate.