Raman is performing yoga in a headstand position, with his head down and legs up, while his face is towards the West. In this inverted posture, in which cardinal direction will his left hand be pointing?

Introduction:
This direction–sense problem involves an inverted body position. Raman is in a headstand with his head down, legs up, and face towards the West. We are asked to determine the direction of his left hand in this upside-down posture. The twist is that inversion reverses left and right relative to the ground, even though his face continues to point in the same direction.

Given Data / Assumptions:
• Raman is doing yoga with his head down and legs up (a headstand).• His face is oriented towards the West throughout.• He is upside down relative to a normal standing position.• We assume his body has rotated only enough to invert head and feet, keeping his face still towards West.

Concept / Approach:
When a person is standing upright facing West, the North lies on their right, and the South lies on their left. However, in a headstand where the body is inverted but still facing the same horizontal direction (West), the spatial orientation of left and right flips with respect to the ground. Intuitively, what was originally the person's left side now lies where the right side used to be when seen from the outside. Formalising this with a mental rotation clarifies that the left hand now points towards the North.

Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Consider Raman standing upright facing West. In that normal posture, North is to his right and South is to his left.Step 2: In the upright position facing West, his left hand points towards the South and his right hand towards the North.Step 3: Now invert him so that he is in a headstand but still facing West. This is equivalent to rotating his body 180 degrees around a horizontal axis running from front to back.Step 4: Under such a rotation, the direction of his face (towards West) remains the same, but his "up" direction reverses and the positions of his left and right sides swap relative to the ground.Step 5: As a result, the arm that is anatomically his left arm now points where his right arm was pointing when he was upright.Step 6: Earlier, his right arm pointed towards the North while facing West upright. Now, upside down, his left arm takes that place and therefore points towards the North.

Verification / Alternative check:
You can verify this by imagining someone facing West and marking their hands: draw a figure facing left on paper (left representing West). Label the lower hand as left and the upper hand as right. Then rotate the page 180 degrees to represent a headstand: the face still points left (West), but the labels of the hands swap sides relative to the page edges. The hand that remains anatomically "left" is now on the side that was originally "right", pointing towards North.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
East and West correspond to the forward and backward directions relative to his face, and a side hand cannot point along the forward-facing direction when the arms are stretched out sideways. South would be the direction of his left hand in the upright position, but inversion reverses this. North-East is a diagonal that would require an upward component not described in the problem. Only North is consistent with the inversion of left and right when the face remains towards West.

Common Pitfalls:
Many learners mistakenly assume that inversion does not affect left and right, or they try to imagine turning around vertically instead of flipping over horizontally. Others confuse the directions of the Sun or try to bring in shadow logic, which is not relevant here. A careful visualisation of an upside-down person or a simple sketch rotated by 180 degrees helps significantly.

Final Answer:
In the described headstand posture, Raman's left hand will point towards the North direction.