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When we last wrote on April 17, 2026, we were on the forty-eighth morning, and the finish was still only an idea. One full mandala lay behind us, and one other mandala and more days extended ahead, along with a quiet uncertainty about whether the body and the will would hold for the distance.
Today, we write from the other side of that question. The 108 days are complete. Hasrat and I have each closed the count at 11,664 Surya Namaskars, i.e. 108 every single day, from the first of March to the sixteenth of June.
Counted another way, that is 8,100 minutes on the mat. We kept a disciplined seventy-five-minute practice every morning. A warm-up to coax the joints awake, the 108 salutations themselves, pranayama to settle the breath, plus a closing yoga nidra to let the body absorb the effort. One hundred and thirty-five hours in all.
We record these numbers because figures have a way of making a private discipline feel solid. But we should be plain about one thing. The numbers are the least interesting part of what took place.
The real return on these 108 days has been internal for us, and it resists easy measurement. Our focus is sharper than it has been in years, the kind of attention that lets us sit with a single task without the mind drifting off to find something easier. The flexibility we once thought was a far-off goal now turns up unannounced in ordinary movement, in the way we bend, reach, and rise from a chair, for example. The weight has steadied, settling into a range without the usual effort of chasing it. And beneath all of it sits a calm we did not expect, a steadiness of mind that holds through crowded days and demanding meetings and does not rattle easily.
This, we think, is what a rigorous regimen does when repeated over months. What you begin as discipline, you slowly stop having to decide on. It quietly becomes the shape of who you are.
We will not pretend any of it was gentle. The salutations were never the hard part. The hard part was the alarm at half past four, morning after morning, in the heat and Mumbai’s humidity, and on days when travel had fatigued us and on days when an early meeting meant rising earlier still.
There were mornings when the warm pull of sleep made a persuasive case for staying put. The practice, we learned, lives precisely in those minutes. You choose the mat anyway, and in choosing it, you build the one muscle that matters more than any other. Over time, the mind stops negotiating. It simply gets up.
If there is a single lesson we would press on anyone tempted to try this, it is the one we wrote about at the halfway mark, which we believe in even more firmly now. Do not walk this road alone if you can avoid it.
Having us beside each other changed the entire texture of the thing. Accountability is the practical part of it. Companionship is the deeper part. It is the difference between getting through a practice and truly sharing one. On the mornings we might have faltered, each other’s effort and presence carried us.
So, what now, with the count complete? The truthful answer is that the number was never really the point. 108 days was a target, and targets are useful for getting started, but the sun will rise tomorrow as it always does, and we fully expect to meet it. The discipline has outgrown the challenge that created it. What began as an audacious thought, discussed between two friends on a silent evening, has become a way of opening the day that we have no wish to surrender. So Suryanamaskars it will be, but now with the addition of many other asanas and practices.
To anyone reading this with a trace of intent, let us offer the same caution we offered before, plainly. 108 Surya Namaskars is a demanding practice and not a casual one. Before you attempt any version of it, speak to your physician or a qualified health professional and have your readiness properly assessed. Your present condition, past injuries, and physical baseline all matter, and they matter far more than any inspiration these words might spark. Honor the body. It is the vehicle that carries the whole journey, and it deserves to be consulted first.
The mandalas and practice are complete. The Yoga mornings, gratefully, continue.
Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this article/column are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of South Asian Herald.
