Mananthavadi, Amma’s Anandavadi or the flower garden of Bliss!
Verily so.
The evening of 17th March saw a heavy downpour on the green hills of the lower western ghats. Manathavadi lies in this belt. A little before midnight, after the downpour had virtually stopped, Amma and Her Ashram children arrived in the Manathavadi Ashram.

Were the hundreds of Manathavadi-human children alone in rejoicing Amma’s coming? No.
The entire undulated region, lush with coffee plantation, rejoiced Amma’s long awaited arrival. They bloomed their rare white jasmine-like little bouquets. All at once, unlike say hibiscus or rose where each bud gets its turn. Each coffee shrub bloomed at least a few dozens of such white little bunches. All of them in looking-up position, along the horizontal- midrib of the soft but long branches.

The coffee-flowers bloom once a year only; they last for only 4 or 5 days, and  wither in order to become our favorite coffee seeds. This year they waited for Amma’s coming.

Well, you may think i am over poetisising things.

Not so. Last time Amma was here, then also the rain was long awaited and it happened on the eve of Amma’s arrival, and the flowers remained bloomed all those few days Amma was here. And mind you, that was in February, and this is mid March.

Going around the hill on which lies the school, the temple and Amma’s program spot, one can see valleys and hills stretching as far as the eyes can reach. On their slopes are these coffee gardens. In dim light they look like innumerable stars twinkling in the sky. Only ‘more innumerable’ than stars.
My friend and i could do nothing but go on exclaiming “Oh, unbelievable! Ah, unbelievable!”

This is my garden of bliss, also … Walking around i find numerous birds which were a common sight in childhood, but now disappeared from cities and towns, they can be seen and heard here. Sparrows were every day birds, but these few decades i haven’t seen them much. (Here they have their homes in every space under the roof of Amrita Kripa Hospital, Kalpetta.) The otherwise shy Bulbuls, birds with sweetest voice, with monkey-cap like conical plume over their heads, did not fly away when we humans neared their bush; they continued with their sing-song dialogues, perching swinging gliding somersaulting etc. within the bush. While wayside shrubs like Touch-Me-Not is forgotten even as an idiom in our every day world, here they flourish along with their pink little flowers. And the dew drops on the grass-beds shone like silver drops in early morning’s slanting sun rays,… i used to spend hours playing with Touch-me-nots. They have that response to touch, to close their foliage; this way they allow children to play with them. Present day Nature lovers speak of nature friendly things, but here we can see nature’s friendliness. Several insects are buzzing and creaking even as i am typing this. Amma’s words ring in my ears: “People think, if a fish flies in the sky then it is a miracle. Not so. Every thing in this creation is a beautiful miracle!”

Thanks to the height we are on, and the vast stretches of mountains, we get to see a lot of sky. Believe me! When my grandmother was saying ‘Why do you rush to see the sky?’,  i took it as an idiomatic expression meaning ‘why to rush for something that is ordinary and easily available.’ But in fact, times have changed so much that in city-lives we dont get to see stretches of the Sky! Here Nature’s bounty has that too. I remember Amma singing here in Mananthavady the bhajan that starts with- Anatamay patarunnorakashame…) Meaning, O sky that stretches to eternity.) during the Prathishtha days.
i also remember how during Prathistha, years ago, Amma’s farming children on this region made garlands of their produce, with natural thing like the cardamom, the beetle leaves, the pepper pods, arecanuts, wild flowers, mild flowers and every possible thing, and garlanded Amma when they came for Darshan. She became virtual Vanadevi, accepting them and in turn blessing them.

Devotees here have to work really hard to clear the jungle-place fit for activities, but their hearts like the coffee flowers bloom to Amma’s Love and make it possible.

– Sandhya