This year’s Padma Vibhushan awards struck a chord with every Indian, Mashelkar for his work on revoking the US patent on turmeric’s healing properties and B.K.S. Iyengar, for healing millions of bodies and minds across the globe with his art of yoga. I had the opportunity to meet and interview BKS last week and it is heart-wrenching to hear his stories. He spoke of his classes being burnt down in the early days and waiting endlessly at Ganesh utsav mandals for an opportunity to get on stage for a couple of minutes to demonstrate asanas. It was only after 15 years of teaching that he got his first middle-aged student, till then it was considered to be a pastime of the old.