Over the past 20 years or so, yoga and fitness have not only changed her physically, but also the way she perceives and approaches life emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

Silver-haired with warm sparkling eyes, a generous smile and an enviably lithe, toned body, Shakila Chapra is no ordinary 60-year-old — a proud mother of three sons, actor Sajid Hassan’s wife and yoga instructor. So who is the real Shakila?

“The real Shakila is a warrior. I am a jihadi, I fight my own wars,” she said, settling down on a couch right after her morning yoga session was over, clutching a family album (to show me family pictures) and a cup of green tea. I don’t go poking my nose in other people’s business. Yoga has taught me to discipline myself in many ways and these are the best years of my life. Never felt so happy, so strong — I’m not fighting myself na! Wisdom, tolerance, acceptance, it is here. And when you are happy from within, you emanate that happiness, it is that simple.”

How Shakila’s fitness journey took her into the world of self-discovery, spiritual growth, and both physical and mental changes

Her eyes twinkling, she calls herself ‘the grandmother of fitness in Karachi’ and laughs. “It seems that I was one of the first few people in Pakistan especially of the female gender to think that women were worth being fit and strong. I started when I was way younger and now I am a grandmother in real life.”

“Back in the late ’80s I got myself a Jane Fonda CD. I was totally enamoured by it and felt wonderful after exercising,” which was when she realised that fitness was her thing and there was a market for it here. Within two years, in partnership with a friend who had a vacant room in her house, she set up a small fitness place. “We invested Rs20,000 each, installed an AC, changed the curtains and the carpet, put up a huge mirror and I launched myself as an aerobic trainer on the basis of my love and passion for fitness, without any training. Just by word of mouth, we became popular and women started coming for a nominal fee of Rs200.”

Along with aerobics, she also developed a deep interest in yoga. Shakila recalled an inspiring summer vacation in Mumbai in 1983, where unexpectedly she met Rekha, the Indian film star. “The hotel we were staying at in Mumbai had a fitness studio called Mind & Body Temple. I wanted to do my exercise so at six in the morning I got up, dressed and arrived there. Rama Baans, the aerobics instructor, did half hour of Jane Fonda but the real surprise came when we did yoga with Rekha for the next half hour. She was incredibly perfect in her form and breathing. You can absolutely see when it is done from the heart.”

A stickler for learning, Shakila began to study yoga and fitness in depth. Soon she bought her partner out and started a health club in KDA called Body Sculpture, the first of its kind in Karachi. “It housed a gym, sauna and a jacuzzi. It made me feel worthy and it was something that I wanted to get up every day for.

For the next 13 years, she catered for a healthy and fit lifestyle for Karachiites through Body Sculpture, at a time when only five-star hotels had fitness facilities. Today, she is content with her small but exclusive one-room yoga lounge at her home.

“I have a history and three generations from 15 to 60 years old come to me. I teach them how to get the same benefits from yoga breathing that they would get through high and low impact aerobics. You charge your system and make your mind think that you are in a state of high activity. The mind releases the messages that it does for working muscles. I have lost 40lbs in six to eight months. When you acquire an aerobic state, your heart rate doubles, you sweat and if you are doing a small movement with it, it becomes similar to Kundalini yoga.”

As she sat with her arm slung over the couch, you could see the triangles of her deltoids. I asked her if she got those just through yoga. In an instant she was on the floor on all fours in a downward facing dog / dolphin yoga position. “I do about 50 of these every day, Hatha and Kundalini,” she said and was back on the couch the next minute.

Shakila’s daily routine includes two to three hours of yoga. With the ease of a lithe cat, she arches into a wheel position. “You have to work for what you want but in yoga you get such a huge windfall for such little effort. If I can’t do it for some reason, I feel all my energies everywhere. I become angry, irritated and bitchy. It’s bottled energy. Yoga can benefit everyone. It will definitely make you healthier and fitter, but more than that, it will bring you peace of mind.”

Shakila explains how yoga can alter the mind state.

Learn to breathe. It is all in the mind. In yoga you close your eyes. If your eye moves, your mind moves. Find the centre of your brain and then gently learn to look inward. Iss he ko seekhne mein aik umar lag sakti hai. You look within and make the sound of the ocean in your throat. When you do that your mind becomes interested and when it is engaged, it doesn’t think the usual. Our minds are chattering monkeys. When you give it a focus or a sound or a colour like the Kundalini, you go inwards … it is a different plane. Trust the bloody process; connect with the higher energy up there that we have all forgotten. Do it for 40 days lagataar … 40 is an auspicious special number for us, it works!”

A lot of people would laugh at this technique where you sit at home and breathe in a way that helps you lose fat, she says. “Agar hum khule dil se saans he lein na, we’ll attract better opportunities and better experiences. Being negative or feeling like losers doesn’t help. We all have to sort out our minds, train our dragons, fight our wars and go over the negative.”

We walked through her yoga studio, where mats lay neatly on the floor — a Buddha here, wind chimes there. French windows overlook a little lawn where a motley bunch of (her) cats soak up the sun and serenity. She stops by her little vegetable garden and says, “In any form of exercise, if you strain or force, you defeat the purpose. Take 60 deep breaths and that’s it, you will be in a different mind frame; your chemical composition changes. Think of a diametrically opposite thing. Instead of death, think of life. Instead of night, think of day. Instead of dark, think of light, laugh instead of crying It works every time for me. You have to do it to experience it”.

She recommends the minimal daily exercise routine for everyone, “If you are terribly busy, at least a 10-minute warm up and 20 minutes exercise must be done daily. If you are intelligent, you will also rest for 10 minutes. Enjoying the experience of your effort is essential.”

Discussing the fitness trends among men and women today, Shakila said, “Frankly, we all exercise to look younger, stronger, to look good. Men know the advantages of physical fitness and women tend to be lazy. Women can get away with it by starving and staying thin. Men need muscles, they need to get around, impress, be in your face. Women have to be petite, shy, retiring and a lot of them hide behind the cultural block in their mind so they say hum pagal hain jo apnay ap ko itni museebat mein daalen.”

Shakila was a mother at 17 and 43 and once in between. “We should be a little older when we have children, more settled with ourselves. Women shouldn’t rush into marriages and babies. Grow up yourselves before you start to guide others. Auron ka socho, apna kam socho … Allah ko yaad karo sachay dil se… only then will you be peaceful.”

Looking back at her life, Shakila says, “I believe that I have been very blessed. I could do a riot act or maybe I should have done that 10 years ago but I hope I have mellowed now. I was radical maybe 30 years ago but there are many other strong women who have made their lives and have taken charge. Nowadays marriage is not the only option for women. Earlier, they would marry young girls off and then if the marriage didn’t work and they wanted to get out of it, they would have to fight everyone alone. I think I now understand where these poor men are coming from. I’m not justifying bad things but I can see the other side of the picture, accept them for what they are, which is important for me to move on, otherwise I would be stuck in the same place forever. No rights will be given to women, nothing ... tum ne jo lena hai you have to step forward to take it! Fortunately, no one can last forever, change is essential,” she says dramatically.

So what makes her this incredible mix of the physical and spiritual?

“I take responsibility for making myself happy and unhappy. I have stopped blaming others. All that negative stuff keeps going on and on until you break the cycle. ...There is a high form of energy and when you connect to it, the negative cycle breaks. Karo! Kar ke dekho, ye karnay se hota hai. We show a different face to others and no one knows the reality … it may not be dull and lifeless like the iron mask we show people. Since my childhood I have questioned authority beginning from mum and dad. … Those times were very dark, very deep, very lonely, very essential,” she says, her voice almost a whisper. “You have to go down to the depths of your being. People who can do that are lucky otherwise … you have to keep doing it till you get it right.”

One moment she chats animatedly, the next she dramatically raises or lowers her voice like a theatre actor. Her words are carefully chosen. Why don’t you write, I suggest. “I am a writer, I will write later, when I’m not so all over the place.”

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, July 19th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play