In Namaste, Bitches, the owner of a free-spirited, anti-capitalist yoga studio called Namaste Yoga is a woman named Radhe. As opposed to the devoted companion to Krishna, this Radhe counters her rising “tapas” by tunefully chanting mantras on the harmonium. She has written a book titled India, Gratitude as a tribute to the country that blessed her with yoga, but hates flying economy during her book tour. Yet another popular yoga trainer at the studio is validated by her Instagram followers. Flanked by blond hair, her form of pranayama is to touch her students to ease them with her breath. Most of the students are white, wishing to revitalise their chakras and do the headstand.
Welcome to the white-people-doing-yoga world.
Yoga is arguably India’s most popular export. However, contemporary practitioners tend to adopt yoga with its infuriating clichés – the frivolous use of culturally relevant terms with little knowledge, poor pronunciation of words such as visuddha and bakasana, and positive vibes. Parodying this to great effect is the six-episode YouTube comedy series Namaste, Bitches.
Created by successful yoga teacher Summer Chastant, the series comprises four-minute episodes. that tackle the cutthroat yoga industry in the USA. Chastant plays Sabine, a yoga instructor who moves to Los Angeles for a job, but is instead ushered into the fakery that governs her yoga studio where teachers build their credibility by being Instagram stars. As Sabine judges the plasticity of the act put on by her co-workers before eventually giving in, Namaste, Bitches makes a statement about the internet fad that yoga has become.
In one of the most telling moments, a lone brown-skinned student quits the class because he doesn’t fit into the whiteness around him. Yoga should ideally have been a cultural exchange, but white practitioners of the craft do not always attempt to understand its genesis and meaning, exemplified by one of Sabine’s popular co-teachers who gives all the wrong instructions. Namaste, Bitches casts a well-deserving side-eye to this form of appropriation.
You will undoubtedly finish the short and amusing series in one go. As an Indian viewer, you are bound to appreciate its discerning take-down of the hype around the yogic lifestyle. After which, you’ll gladly await for what Sabine will do next.