Breathe and Release: Maalavika Manjunatha Brings a Lifetime of Yoga to Campus
Maalavika Manjunatha was only twelve years old when she found herself surrounded by strangers, struggling to hold a tree pose. She didn’t know whether to try to keep up with the chanting or the Asanas (yoga poses), and she kept running out of breath.
“What is this?” she asked herself as she looked around, the only person in the room with their eyes open. “Why am I doing this?”
Although she didn’t know what yoga was, or what all the chanting was for, she knew why she’d agreed to get up at 4:30 am to balance herself on one foot on the terrace of a local mall. It was because of her dad.
A health and wellness enthusiast, he’d heard of a bank manager who taught yoga for free, Mondays through Saturdays, at a nearby shopping center. He decided to give Nagabhushan Guruji’s daybreak classes a try.
Maalavika, meanwhile, just wanted to hang out with her dad more. “My dad used to be in the police department. He had a very busy job and hardly spent time with us. With this morning routine, I could talk to him more,” she said.
Maalavika (left), her parents and sister
Being with dad and hitting up different breakfast spots every day after class kept her going. Eventually, though, she continued doing yoga because of how it made her feel. “I started seeing my body do things that it was not able to do before,” she said. Things like the Chakrasana, or the Wheel Pose. She continued attending the classes every day for another eight years.
Breathing and releasing
Fifteen years later, Maalavika, now an MS in Project Management student at Northeastern, still practices yoga every day, and she still rubs her hands and thanks her Guruji after each yoga session. “Yoga is the one constant thing that’s stayed with me throughout. It’s seen my good and bad,” she said.
Recently, she shared a bit of her yoga experience with a group of students on the Silicon Valley campus, in a yoga and meditation event called “Breathe and Release” which she co-led with MS in Computer Science student Qiwen (Fiona) Xiong.
Maalavika in Wheel Pose
The event — part chair yoga class, part laughter yoga class, and part meditation session, with some wellness tips and bubble tea sipping thrown in between — was the first she helped co-create on campus.
It was also the first time she taught a yoga class. “There was so much learning, even for me. Teaching people, and actually having them do the same pose as me, felt amazing,” she said.
Standing out
Maalavika only recently realized that the things that make her who she is are also things that others might be interested in. Conversation starters.
When she first moved to the U.S., she felt out of place. “I didn’t wear a crown on my head,” she said. “But I did feel different, and stood out for various reasons.”
Then she signed up for a yoga class, and afterward, people came up to her to ask her how long she had been practicing. “That’s when I realized it was something different.”
Seeing that people were interested in her gave her the confidence to share more of herself. “It gave me a good opportunity to talk to people. I used it to make connections.”
Enjoying a post-yoga bubble tea
With some, she shared that, although she has a dining table at home, she’s “happier and more connected” with herself when she eats sitting on the ground.
With others, that she keeps a calendar where most days have tiny icons of salads, dumbbells, people in lotus positions, and zzz’s in them, while a few — like December 31st, the last day of the year and her birthday — have a donut, a pizza, and the words “cheat day” on them.
With the dozen students present at the Breathe and Release event, she shared that she steps onto a spiky rubber mat first thing in the morning.
Also: that taking your arms all the way up as if you were holding an axe and then bringing them down full force as though you were chopping wood is great for releasing stress — even better if you say Ha! while doing it.
“It’s nice to share our experiences,” she said. “It’s one small way of giving back.”
Giving back
Beyond the asanas, giving back is one of the things she learned from her Guruji (“Guruji” is a word for addressing a spiritual teacher or mentor).
Inspired by his example, she volunteered for two years as an English and Math teacher to vulnerable children in a rural community in India. (She received a Full Circle Scholarship in recognition of her volunteer work.)
Here in the U.S., she recently worked her second shift at the Sacred Heart Community Service kitchen, sorting out vegetables for grocery baskets for the poor. “No movie theater could have given me that pleasure. No restaurant that serves the best ramen in town could’ve done that,” she said.
She wants to do more volunteering —“it puts a smile on your face and your heart is content for it,” she said. For now, she’s focused on sharing her interests and passions — yoga, Indian culture, health and wellness — and making connections.
Maalavika and other Silicon Valley students volunteering at Sacred Heart