The secret of Manipur's 'Iron Lady' Irom Sharmila's fairly good health who underwent a hunger strike for 16 years, during which she was forcibly nose-fed, lay in her will power and the habit of yoga everyday.

According to her associates and family members, she had been practicing yoga since 1998, two years before she sat on the hunger strike which ended on Tuesday.

Sharmila's brother Irom Singhajit told PTI, "It is her strong will power and daily habit of practising yoga which kept her physically fit" .

As a young woman in the nineties Sharmila was fascinated by the subject of nature cure and completed a course which also included yoga as a means of natural well-being. Sharmila had told her biographer Deepti Priya Mehrotra in the book 'Burning Bright' "Yoga is not like football. It is different. If a person does yoga, it can help one to live longer. By doing yoga, one can live upto one hundred years! It is not so with other sports like football.”

She recounted that she started doing the Yoga asanas in 1998 and since then she has been doing it everyday.

Describing Sharmila as someone exceptionally close to nature, the book said that she used to experiment continually with her body through Yoga and walking.

Under police detention since indefinite hunger strike has been viewed as an attempt to commit suicide, which is a punishable offence.  Sharmila has spent almost all of the last 16 years at the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences Hospital.

As an undertrial prisoner she rarely met visitors and spent a solitary life during her fasting period.

Also Read: Highlights of International Yoga Day 2016!

By Prakriti Neogi