Over the decades, the residents of Mysore got used to the sight of westerners dolled up in saris wandering through the streets. Blonde girls in Indian dress were among the thousands of students who flocked to the south Indian city to study Ashtanga yoga with Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois, the man credited for doing much to bring the discipline to the west.

Jois died on May 18, just short of his 94th birthday, in the city where he arrived, aged 14, to beg on its streets and study Sanskrit. Today, Mysore is the site of one of the world’s biggest IT training centres run by computer group Infosys.