Last night and this morning there was Devi-bhava again. This time it was in Holland. Before it began Amma was talking to everybody here again through Skype, asking if it was raining, making jokes, and wanting to know which color sari She should wear for the Bhava darshan. The boys shouted “Neela, Neela” wanting Amma to put on a blue sari. And lo and behold, when the curtains opened Amma was indeed wearing deep aquatic blue.

There was an especially interesting moment during the darshan when Lakshmi Akka, Amma’s long time attendant, who is from Holland, went together with her parents to receive Amma’s blessing. Amma was playing around a lot and made Lakshmi and her mother hug each other also. Very sweet.

At one point there was almost a shouting competition between the Brahmacharis and the Brahmacharinis as each on their own side shouted “Ammaaaaah!” as loud as they could, one after the other.

In the morning towards the end of the darshan Amma’s mother Damayanti was brought up in a wheelchair to the boy’s side and placed in front of the web-camera. Amma was calling her and waving to her, but Damayanti was very shy and was content only to watch Amma, who was in a very joyful mood and kept waving food in front of the camera, offering it to us through the camera then putting the snack in close to Her own mouth, then back to us, and then finally popped it in Her mouth.

At the end She hugged the air tightly and blew kisses to us again. And then She went out of the Devi-bhava tent into the crowd awaiting outside in pin-drop silence. The boys gathered their strength and gave one more thunderous shout, “Aaammaaah!”

There was one last sidelong glance from Amma. Or was there?

In my world there was.

Vishwanath

28 Oct 2006