In 2015, when Dr Hansa Yogendra's son, Hrishi, was readying to get married, she made a request that seemed "rad" to the family. "I wanted the girl to come live with us and figure if she wanted to marry my son," she says when we meet at The Yoga Institute in Santacruz East. The arrangement made practical sense. "When you are dating, you see the best of a person. Cohabitation is the only way to know them inside out." Hrishi agreed, the experiment was successful, and he and Pranee are now husband and wife. Not all stories have happy endings, though.

In her stint as director of the world's oldest and most prestigious yoga centre, Dr Hansa has played agony aunt to countless students and continues to. Her role as advisor, however, is not restricted to sharing tips on mental and physical health. It's often about relationships. "In fact, it's love and marriage where most people find themselves fumbling," she shares. The yogini decided she needed to intervene when she came across marriages falling apart with alarming regularity. "It began to feel like an epidemic." And, she had to do something.