by Joanna Yap, reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on October 13, 2013, Sunday

GROWING UP as a young boy in Kerala, India, Jacob Sebastian can barely recall a time when he was not sickly.

I was born into a family of very healthy people but I was an exception I was sick from birth. My family wondered why. This was during the time when there was no antibiotics, and very little knowledge of things such as cholesterol and blood pressure, he shared with thesundaypost.

It was only years later that Jacob discovered the reason behind his poor health was due to a birth defect. Three of the vertebrae on his left side were fused, causing his left lung to be underdeveloped and not fully functional.

As a teenager, his ill health worsened until it reached the point he almost dying in the hospital.

At that time, his elder sister who was studying medicine in another part of India, took it upon herself to nurse him back to health so that he could continue with his studies in college.

One day, she took Jacob to see her senior colleague, a well-known doctor. Little did Jacob know the doctors advice would have such a profound effect on his life.

He examined me and said to my sister: Your brother will be all right. But he must do two things respect the cold and do breathing exercise. His lung needs breathing. Take him to a yoga teacher, said Jacob who can still remember the doctors words as clearly as when the latter first spoke them more than 65 years ago.

Soon after that fateful meeting, Jacobs sister took him to see a yoga teacher for the first time. The teacher taught the then 19 years old Jacob a series of breathing exercises.

Partners For Life

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Yoga pioneer still going strong