The wooden path in the forest was suddenly overhung with trees – sinister-looking, grasping, their gnarled hands reaching out. Rhododendrons! And so many of them! In bloom, this must be a mountainside of bright red – just blood-red flowers hanging overhead and on either side.
Which would “the multitudinous seas incarnadine”, he thought. Macbeth, from English class. He smiled, how deep the stamp of colonial schooling ran in his subconscious. “The multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.” The whole green, broad-leaved forest must be red in May, incarnadined.
“Look,” he pointed out to Mandhira, “the rhododendrons you wanted to see.”
“Oh, are these rhododendrons? I thought they’d be more like creepers.”
“Tree rhododendrons, different from other ones. I think those grow on creepers.”
“Didn’t Manish say they wouldn’t be around this season?”
“True. Very strange. Maybe it’s climate change – the patterns of things are changing.”
The sun they had started under had disappeared in a blanket of mist. Out ahead, a person would be visible and then not, just a glimpse of a red backpack disappearing. The path in the rhododendron forest had been pressed into place over the years with rough sleepers hewn from logs.
“So, tell me, how does it work? The yoga business.”
“Yoga? Or the business of yoga? Because the business of yoga is all about Instagram. People want to feel good – rather they think, the yoga does – but they also need to look good. They need to be seen looking good. They need to connect with other people who look good.”
“People are doing yoga on the internet?”
“I only hold the group classes online. Otherwise, it’s one-on-one in person again these days. But I meant the social idea of yoga. It’s become essential for any young woman to do yoga, to own yoga clothes, to think about wellness.”
“Everyone actually is. It’s the biggest revolution of the last 20 years – wellness, self-care, diet, functional fitness.”
“I suppose it’s a good thing,’ Moeen patted his belly, ‘I could definitely use more daily fitness. I almost envy the young.”
“Shall I tell you something?” Mandhira winked, “So do I.”