The institute, built in 1975, is obviously central to his life. ‘‘There are vibrations that one feels when one enters here, vibrations that make one feel like I do, totally positive and dynamic,’’ he says stepping into the main hall lined with photographs of Iyengar, his elastic body contorting itself in impossible yoga positions. Through windows partially screened by trees, light pours into the room, where half-a-dozen disciples practise their yoga postures, alert to the white dhoti-kurta-clad presence of their Guruji.The institute also consecrates the memory of his wife. ‘‘She gave up her conveniences for my yoga, but she did not live to see the institute. She passed away almost immediately after she had laid the foundation stone. It was a great shock to me,’’ he says walking up the pathway lined with ashoka trees and palms.‘‘Meditation is within, it can take place anywhere,’’ he says. Yoga finds its representation everywhere in the institute — in the plaster figures of Iyengar in five yogic postures on the institute’s outer wall, in the books that fill the library, in the seven buttresses and two doors that represent the chariot of Surya and, of course, in Iyengar.‘‘Yoga is like the classical expression of a raga to me,’’ he says. It is a raga that resonates through the institute.
